Sometimes the job calls for a bit more…

American Soldiers with Girl and Puppy in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy France 1944 (Getty Images)

Thank You.

 


Decoration Day (Normandy at 75 Years)

Ed Clarity, New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images

Happy Memorial Day!
Happy Decoration Day.

All Gave Some, Some Gave All.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day because to honor the deceased soldiers people would decorate their graves with flowers and flags.

dievca wonders who decorates the graves in Normandy…

Staff at Normandy American Cemetery is actively involved in the preparations for the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings Ceremony of June 6.

So, its the staff who decorates….

All dievca knows is she saw the beach where the troops got decimated and her fertile imagination went wild.  June 6th will involve a prayer from dievca for the blood bath. It made the message of this Westside Hwy NYC billboard hit home.

And don’t forget — its unofficially the 1st Day of Summer. Time to wear white!

Photos: dievca - Normandy, France 08/2018 and Westside Hwy NYC 05/2019

une pyramide merveilleuse

Friends, does he remember when we left Avranches? 
A beautiful setting sun shone in the branches; 
Our wheel, by the way, crumpled the green bushes; 
We all looked at the fields, the heavens, the seas…

” Le Mont Saint-Michel apparaît (…) comme une chose sublime, une pyramide merveilleuse.”
Victor Hugo, 1865

And the start of the 2016 Tour de France…

Photos: dievca France 08/2018

Finding a Beach: Operation Jubilee

The Dieppe Raid was an Allied assault on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, France on 19 August 1942, during the Second World War. The main assault lasted less than six hours until strong German defenses and mounting Allied losses forced its commanders to call a retreat.

Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were supported by The Calgary Regiment of the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade and a strong force of Royal Navy and smaller Royal Air Force landing contingents. It involved 5,000 Canadians, 1,000 British troops, and 50 United States Army Rangers.

The Allied air operations supporting Operation Jubilee resulted in some of the fiercest air battles since 1940.

And now, Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer: