Cenotaphs, Cemeteries, and Memorials of the Valiant of World War II

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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

The 1st photo is I. Freedman H20969 Royal Winnipeg Rifles

Commemorated at Veterans Affairs Canada Virtual Memorial, which says:
http://www.vac.gc.ca/eng/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem/Detail&casualty=2059102

In memory of
Rifleman
ISRAEL FREEDMAN
who died on July 5, 1944 ​

Military Service:

Service Number: H/20969 Age: 21 Force: Army Unit: Royal Winnipeg Rifles Additional Information:

Son of Peter and Molly Freedman, of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Commemorated on Page 309 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance.

Additional photos and information about him http://www.vac.gc.ca/content/collections/virtualmem/photoview.cfm?casualty=2059102&photo=12378 including his newspaper obituary.



Taken by my husband and I during our Canadian Battlefields Tour: D-Day to 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands Apr-May 2010

 

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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

Taken by my husband and I during our Canadian Battlefields Tour: D-Day to 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands Apr-May 2010

 

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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

The 1st photo is the marker of an Unknown Soldier

The 2nd photo is C.F. Rogers RCA
Commemorated here http://www.vac.gc.ca/eng/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem/Detail&casualty=2060106

In memory of
Bombardier
CHARLES FORRESTER ROGERS
who died on July 7, 1944

​

Military Service:

Service Number: F/6163 Age: 39 Force: Army Unit: Royal Canadian Artillery Division: 3 Anti-Tank Regt. Additional Information:

Son of James Forrester Rogers and Nettie Isabel Rogers; husband of Naomi Veronica Rogers, of Stewiacke, Colchester Co., Nova Scotia. Commemorated on Page 431 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance.

 

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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

The third photo is W.J. Champagne, Royal Winnipeg Rifles
Commemorated here http://www.vac.gc.ca/eng/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem/Detail&casualty=2058809

In memory of
Lance Corporal
WILLIAM JOHN CHAMPAGNE
who died on July 4, 1944

​

Military Service:

Service Number: L/27215 Force: Army Unit: Royal Winnipeg Rifles Additional Information:

Commemorated on Page 271 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance

Taken by my husband and I during our Canadian Battlefields Tour: D-Day to 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands Apr-May 2010

 

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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery

Taken by my husband and I during our Canadian Battlefields Tour: D-Day to 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands Apr-May 2010

 

The following from the American Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach have been posted previously in another thread in the former WW2F Format, but would be most appropriate in this thread.

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer

American Battle Monuments Commission

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 and the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its ½ mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

The memorial consists of a semicircular colonnade with a loggia at each end containing large maps and narratives of the military operations; at the center is the bronze statue, "Spirit of American Youth." An orientation table overlooking the beach depicts the landings in Normandy. Facing west at the memorial, one sees in the foreground the reflecting pool; beyond is the burial area with a circular chapel and, at the far end, granite statues representing the U.S. and France.

The cemetery is open to the public daily except on December 25 and January 1. Hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from April 15 to September 15, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. It is open on host country holidays. When the cemetery is open to the public, staff members are on duty in the Visitor Center to answer questions and escort relatives to grave and memorial sites.

Photos taken by my husband and I, April 29, 2010.

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

The 4th & 5th photos are taken within the Garden to the Missing. The entire wall is covered with names.

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

So many graves....shots taken from multiple angles to try, unsuccessfully to convey the number...

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial Colleville sur Mer
American Battle Monuments Commission

Taken by my husband and I - April 29, 2010

 

Attached photos of the memorial to the 82nd ? Airborne, their landing zone near Grave Bridge, Holland. They represent the parachutes.

 

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The Abbey d'Ardennes

An exerpt of their story from:
Abbaye d'Ardenne - Veterans Affairs Canada

As many as 156 Canadian prisoners of war are believed to have been executed by the 12th SS Panzer Division (the Hitler Youth) in the days and weeks following the D-Day landings. In scattered groups, in various pockets of the Normandy countryside, they were taken aside and shot.

A total of 20 Canadians were executed near Villons-les-Buissons in the Abbaye d'Ardenne, a massive collection of mediaeval buildings -- including an early Gothic church and several farm buildings -- encircled by walls and surrounded by grainfields. This was where Kurt Meyer, Commander of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment (of the 12th Panzer Division), had established his headquarters


North Nova Scotia Highlanders

• Private Ivan Crowe
• Private Charles Doucette
• Corporal Joseph MacIntyre
• Private Reginald Keeping
• Private James Moss

27th Canadian Armoured Regiment

• Trooper James Bolt
• Trooper George Gill
• Trooper Thomas Henry
• Trooper Roger Lockhead
• Trooper Harold Philp
• Lieutenant Thomas Windsor

(Bolt, Philp and Lockhead had been members of Lt. Windsor's tank crew on D-Day.)


These Canadian POWs were:

• Private Walter Doherty
• Private Hollis McKeil
• Private Hugh MacDonald
• Private George McNaughton
• Private George Millar
• Private Thomas Mont
• Private Raymond Moore

On June 17 it is believed two more Canadians were executed here -- Lieutenant Fred Williams and Lance-corporal George Pollard, both of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders. They had been patrolling for disabled German tanks near Buron and went missing. It is known that two wounded Canadian POWs were evacuated by the Germans to the abbey's first-aid post on June 17. Witnesses later reported hearing shots in the vicinity of the abbey at two different times that day.

The Abbaye d'Ardenne was liberated by the Regina Rifles shortly before midnight on July 8. Their members discovered the body of Lt. Williams (who is buried in the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery), however no trace of LCpl. Pollard was ever found. The Bayeux Memorial (near the Bayeux War Cemetery) lists him as missing.

Photos taken by my husband and I, April 29 2010

 

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Abbey d'Ardennes

Photos taken April 29, 2010

 

That's beautiful, man.

 

Verrieres Ridge Memorial

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http://www.mapleleafup.org/histories/scislowski/verrieres.html
- a brief excerpt:

"A name indelibly etched into the memories of the men of 2nd Canadian Infantry Division who took part in the fierce battle, code-named 'Atlantic', which swept back and forth across the ridge and in the villages of St. Andre sur Orne, Verrieres, St. Martin de Fontenay and Ifs, between July 19 to the 21st, 1944. In these three days, every battalion committed in the battle suffered horrendous casualties in this, their first major action of the invasion. The Essex Scottish alone sustained 244 casualties, 37 of them fatal...

...an epitaph written by the late Col. C.P. Stacey in his book, The Victory Campaign, volume III of the Official Canadian History of WW II. It goes like this: Three miles or so south of Caen, the present-day tourist driving down the arrow-straight road that leads to Falaise, sees immediately to his right a rounded hill crowned by farm buildings. If the traveller be Canadian, he would do well to stay the wheels at this point and cast his mind back to the event of 1944; for this apparently insignificant eminence is the Verrieres Ridge. Well may the wheat and the sugar-beets grow green and lush upon its gentle slope, for in that now half-forgotten summer the best blood of Canada was freely poured out upon them.

An eloquent and fitting tribute indeed.The South Saskatchewans had gone up the Verrieres slope ahead of the Essex and soon found themselves floundering in a hell-dance almost as flaming and body-consuming as that of Dieppe. They were forced to pull back or face the reality of annihilation. They left behind them, however, on the grassy slope, a lot of good men, men they’d sorely need in the days ahead. Their casualties numbered 66 killed, 116 wounded and 26 taken prisoner. Four days later in operation ‘Spring’ it would be the Black Watch’s turn to take a beating. They left behind even more men lying dead in the grain than had the regiment from the prairies. In fact, it came about as close to being wiped out as had the Royal Regiment of Canada and the Essex Scottish two years earlier on the bloodied stones at Dieppe. It was another black day for the 2nd Infantry Division."




Photos taken by my husband and I, April 29, 2010.

 

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Verrrieres Ridge

Photo source: macrusk April 29, 2010