The highlight of the past two days was visiting the Juno Beach Center. This is a private museum that is run independent of the Canadian government, but it is the only monument to Juno beach. It was started by a veteran of the war in the nineties when he came back to visit the site where he landed and the only monument was a tank that had been left in place. It is extremely sad that it took this long for a museum to be put here, especially considering what an extremely well maintained site Vimy Ridge is (which is the biggest battle involving Canadians in WWI).
The building itself is spectacular. It is designed in a very modern style and really stands out against the rest of the scenery without being garish or awkward looking. The exhibits and museum itself are also incredible. Even though I have spent a while studying WWII history, and from a Canadian perspective too, I learned a ton by visiting this museum. I suppose one of the greatest benefits of the museum forming so recently is it has a very modern take on the war and its effects. Yes there are the original documents, uniform and pictures on display, but a major part of the museum is describing how the war impacted the Canada we live in today, and even a large section to teach non-Canadians(and even some Canadians, I’m looking at you Toronto People) what Canada is like today.
The one part of them museum that I was disappointed with the beach tour. The guides did a wonderful job, but they didn’t have much to work with. The only surviving part of the beach defenses was an old bunker that had sat unused for 55 years. When I go to the site of an actual battle, I would like to see either a monument to those who fell or a reconstructed or preserved part of the battlefield. Maybe it was just that Vimy spoiled me, but I came expecting either one or the other, and I got neither. The museum was awesome, but it could have just as easily been a museum in Canada. Perhaps I am just thinking wistfully, and I will see what the other beaches have, but if I come all the way to the actually beaches I would like to be able to understand what the soldiers went through more than just “imagine a line of trenches, with machine guns…” Right now Saving Private Ryan has done a better job of showing me what D-Day was like than actually being on Juno beach.
I also visited two of the largest Canadian cemeteries which are here in the Normandy area. On is the Beny-sur-mer war cemetery, and it is about 4 km away from the beach head and it houses those who died during the landing and immediately that day. The Canadians reached the farthest inland during the first 24 hours after the invasion, but no group met their goals.
The Bretteville-sur-laize War cemetery houses those who died in the next few days of the war, during the German counterattack on June 8, and the battle up until Caen. There were many Regina boys in these two cemeteries, 54 to be exact, because the Regina Rifle Regiment was in the first wave on D-Day and then held the lines during the counter attack. This accounts for nearly half of those from Regina who died in the war, which really underscores just how hard the fighting was those first few days of the Normandy invasion.
No comments:
Post a Comment