Actual Day 3- Death and Dieppe

So, the last entry was actually day 2, not 3! Eh heh! I was thrown off by doing it a bit late, I’m afraid.
So, Day 2 actually being the Post-War museum and the Tapestry… 

Day three was another emotional day. We visited Dieppe, the site of the tragic raid that took place on Aug. 19th, 1942, operation Jubilee. Due to a combination of poor intelligence and communication coupled with pressure from Russia on the British to open a new western front, the planned raid turned into the one of the most horrific losses of the War. Out of approximately 5000 Canadian soldiers, 907 were killed, 586 were wounded, and 1,946 were captured. My great-uncle Harry was killed in action there at the age of 31. He was a medic, and, so our professor postulated, was unlikely to have been in the front rushes, and was very likely killed trying to help someone. In a way, he was lucky to have been identified. The number of unknown or missing soldiers buried in Dieppe is very high. We paid our respects in the memorial, and went into the town of Dieppe itself. To this day, it has a deep relationship with Canada. 

Dieppe

We visited the Jubilee museum, which is a tiny hole-in-the wall in the old Theatre where the Canadians dug in, and eventually retreated from. It is run by a volunteer operation who amassed their collection by private donations, private research, and volunteers. They met with us, a few of their guides and their director, to give us some history of the museum, of Dieppe’s relationship with Canada, and to explain how they eventually hoped for a grant which would allow them to move to a proper modern space where they could have the museum and memorial they hoped to one day build. As it is, their collection is small, cramped, and much less than it could be. This is not to say a word against it- As the work of private collectors and volunteers pooling resources, its a wonderful tribute to Canada and to the history and build up of the Dieppe raid and it’s staggering losses. But they know it is less than it could be, and that they have collections and archives in storage due to their lack of space and ability to renovate in a historical building. It was a moving and attentive visit- when Corey spoke with one of the attendants behind the desk, she spoke to him in broken french, and thanked him and Canada ‘for Dieppe’. 

Exhibits and Video

After the Jubilee museum, we visited the beaches, and experienced immediately why the raid had failed so terribly. To be fair, from an aerial view the beaches would have looked normal, especially with the technology at the time. This is part of the poor intelligence gathered prior to the raid. In actuality, the Dieppe beaches are steep, what looked to be at least 35% of incline and about two meters before it evened out. It was also huge rocks, not sand, which the treads of the tanks were entirely unprepared for. We stood on the rocks and knew, miserably and deeply, just how much the soldiers would have had to struggle up, slow and weighed down, being shot at with no cover as they came. It was a heavy day. What helped was the warm welcome by Dieppe, and the story that the citizens of Dieppe have collectively remembered through their grandparents; of the Canadian Prisoners being brought down to the beaches for release, and whispering in French to the locals who had been collected to witness their ‘shame’, “we’ll be back…. We’ll be back….” In a moment of Poetic Justice, if there ever was one, it was the Canadians who were allowed to return to liberate Dieppe in 1944. The same men marched out under armed guard were welcomed back with tears and cries of welcome from the french who remembered them leaving. In the video we watched, veterans and locals recalling the different moments were deeply affecting. 

Beaches at Dieppe

After a day of absorbing all this, we returned to Paris. We filmed our first round of interviews for the video, and then on Day four had a day of freedom in the city. A few of our number visited the Louvre and the National History museum, some walked the Seine and saw Notre Dame and the Tuilderies, and all had a marvellous time and took lots of beautiful pictures. The very next morning, day 5, brought us to the Great War museum of Peronne, and to the memorial of Beaumont-Hamel. More to come.

Time in Paris!

Caen and Tapestries on Day Three

On Saturday, we awoke to another rainy morning in Bayeux. After a light breakfast provided by the hotel, we were off to the Caen Memorial at 8:30am. For a group of students who claim to be studying tourism, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that the Memorial was actually a huge, well-stocked and well-interpreted museum spanning the lead up events to World War II, the war, post-war, the cold war, and the manchurian war. Embarrassingly, many of us had sort of expected a statue, or garden.  

It was actually this!

Museum and Exhibits

The interpretation was via audio guide, which is useful if a bit impersonal, but the exhibits themselves were impressive. A large walk through tunnel featuring images, written interpretation, objects, short films, and some large relics of the Caen and other atlantic wall fronts such as a bunker and tank. 

The centre had also been part of producing a film, entitled D-Day, which was about 18 minutes detailing the Battle of Britain and operation overlord. It didn’t have quite the emotional impact of the short film at Juno, and was mainly made up of dialogue over snapshots, which was sometimes a bit abrupt and jarring. One moving bit, though, showed a series of photos of smiling young soldiers, and in every one a few of their fellows faded out as the audio spoke of the death toll and the many casualties.

We had a few Q&A sessions with the director, before and after our tour, and he gave us some background about the Caen memorial, and of their collections. We were also given lunch in their cafeteria, and, after a wander through the gift-shop, we were returned to Bayeux by 3:00pm to view the renowned Bayeux Tapestry.

Portion of Bayeux Tapestry

Technically, the Tapestry isn’t part of our battlefield tourism itinerary, but it would be absolutely blasphemous to visit Bayeux even for the day and not see it. The Tapestry is an over 60 metre length of linen, hand embroidered with dyed wool to tell the story of the Battle of Hastings and William the Conquerer. It is also nearly one thousand years old, and preserved beautifully. The Tapestry is hung along a long, u-shaped hall behind softly lit glass, and an audio guide was used to tell the story as we went. The tapestry was staggering- the audio guide, however, was terrible. The pause and stop buttons had no effect at all, and the voice just charged on through every panel even if you wanted to take time and take in the detail. There was no other interpretation (written tags, etc) to fall back on, so one had to rush through to keep up with the story and the descriptions of each panel. Afterward, there was an upper floor with a great deal of information and interpretation not only of the battle and William the Conqueror, but about the tapestry, its history, its making, and its preservation, and a film as well. I enjoyed it, but it seems like it would be a much better idea to go through the upper floor and the film first, and hear not only about the details of the story, but of the tapestry and it’s history, and then walk through and see it. You wouldn’t require the ineffective audio guide, and it would prepare you for the reality of what you are viewing in a completely different way. It was wonderful, and even though it wasn’t a direct part of our tour objectives, it was a perfect way to spend a rainy hour in the afternoon. 

Afterwards, we carried on to enjoy the other things that France offers besides beauty and history:

Sante, et bon appétit!

They Walk With You

Today began as a cold, wet, windy, and appallingly miserable day. It is part of Paris' mischievous charm that it still seemed beautiful out, and all the more so when we all met at the Seine-ward left leg of the Tour Eiffel at about 8:15 this morning to begin our Battlefield Tourism trip. We all gathered, headed for the bus, and were off 9:00am. A few hours of driving; a brief station stop for coffee, snacks, and a leg stretch; and another hour or so on the highway saw us to the small town of Courseulles sur Mer. Despite being three hours from Paris, Courseulles was just as full of wind and rain, and a leisurely lunch at a local seafood restaurant did a good job of cheering us up, especially the espresso and dessert course. A plateful of chocolate mousse, raspberry and cream puree, rice pudding, and a trio of wee cookies works wonders.

We left afterward for the Juno Beach Centre, and it was an engaging and moving three hours. We started with an introduction to their temporary 70th anniversary exhibit by the program manager, Marie Vaillancourt. The exhibit was called; "Grandma, what was it like during the war?". It was set up to be an account of the occupation and liberation of D-Day through the lens of being a young student, a child, or a family. It contrasted life in occupied France to the war efforts of families and children in Canada, and was a well designed exhibit that was interesting to all of us, despite the level of the intended audience, and it was a unique one. How many war or military museums are directed at children? It was expressly intended, Marie told us, to help facilitate a dialogue between generations, and give questions and answers about what life during the war, and particular the school and family experiences of those who would have been young children and teenaged civilians.

Juno Beach Centre Exhibits

After the exhibit, we went on a guided tour of the two excavated bunkers that were a small part of the vast atlantic wall, and we went to the beach itself, and the guide spoke of the numbers of the killed and wounded, the defences they overcame, and what it meant to the liberated city and the next steps in the Battle of Normandy.

The Command Bunker, and Control Bunker at Juno Beach

Juno Beach; April 25, 2014

 It was a subdued moment, and when we returned to the museum to view the short film of Canadian soldiers perspective of preparing for and arriving at the beaches, the feeling lingered. We continued into a self guided wander through the museum itself, and the various areas covered Canadian battles, war efforts, history, and up to contemporary society. After we went through, we viewed another short film, this time about the experiences of the soldiers, and the realities they faced of fear, pain, and death. It was entitled "They Walk With You", and ended on a chokingly emotional scene of a modern tourist family walking the lengths of Juno beach, and discussing the events that happened there with their children. Behind them walked the ghosts of the hundreds of soldiers killed at Juno. It was, as Sarah said to Marie during our Q&A session which followed, a powerful ending.

It was on this emotional note that our first official day ended, and we travelled on to our hotel, the Reine Mathilde,  in the town of Bayeux. I think the unexpectedly emotional nature of the tour is setting the bar for the following ten days we have together. We still have Vimy and Dieppe to come, and tomorrow we're heading to the Caen memorial, a Q&A with their director, and Bayeux Tapestry.

Right now, in the early evening, the sky has cleared, the rain has stopped, and the sun came out for a final short few hours for our free time, as if the earlier weather was a sort of inverted pathetic fallacy to put us even slightly closer to the bleak, damp moods of June 6th, 1944.

Bayeux, Normandy. Bon Soiree.