When the Battle of Normandy ended if most of the Fallen were in provisional cemeteries, laid out by the Allied Armies, many other graves, alone or in groups still dotted the countryside. Churchyards too had received the bodies of the warriors. Today there are still over two hundred lone graves or squares of tombs of soldiers, buried either after a skirmish or in the days and months that preceeded the Battle (Airmen, Commandos, Paras). Many disappeared in the heat of the battle: airrcrew and seamen who fell into the sea, infantryymen buried during action, mutilated corpses hastily covered over.
Over 100,000 soldiers of thirteen nationalities repose forever in the soil of Normandy: 13,800 Americans (2,055 missing), 17,000 British (1,808 missing in the Army alone), 5,110 Canadians, 729 Poles, 246 French, 27 Australians, 19 New Zealanders, 7 South Africans, 7 Russians, 3 Czechs, 2 Italians, 2 Belgians ... and over 70,000 Germans.
07-20-2008, 06:26 PM
