My Wife has brought this to my attention and I had to share. This is it reported by the Daily Mail. The view you see is from one of the Normandy beaches and shows thousands of silhouettes representing those who lost their lives on D-Day no matter their nationality. Please click on the link for the full story, I hope you will find it of great interest.
It does remind me of the time the CND sprayed outlines on the pavements and roads in town centres to represent the dead from the first two Atomic Bombs when I was only about sixteen years old. The beach one is that bit more symbolic in how they were removed from the beach.
There are some excellent documentaries available on the Youtube now about D-Day that show the contribution and the losses experienced.
ReplyDeleteThe fight in the Pacific was also exceptional. There is an astounding amount of live footage out there of these landings as they happened. The men were told that 90% of them would die, yet they stormed those beaches. The carnage is beyond believe. Movies don't come close to the reality of war.
That's really cool!
ReplyDeleteThat was the beach my Father landed on. He never worked out why they needed a dispatch rider on a beach that small, but there you go.
ReplyDelete(BTW he lost his bike in nine feet of water - always blamed the Navy!)
Amazing. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletecheers
At last, Art that has a serious purpose! I especially like the fact its a purposely temporary installation, makes the message all the more powerful.
ReplyDeleteSaw this on Facebook, stunning.
ReplyDeleteThis art make sence! And when you read that almost 500 people helped to make this possible then you can say that the message was clear! Remember them!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Ian!
Greetings
Peter
Wow, that's haunting.
ReplyDelete@ Anne, old internet is a great source for such film footage etc, I love the internet ;-)
ReplyDelete@ Ray, Cool Banana as one follower may say
@ Gary, that is THE best response I have ever had to a blog post, so happy I choose to post about this.
@ The Kiwi, Cath was really pushing for me to share and I am glad I listened to her.
@ Lee, That is how I saw it too. Made it so more powerful.
@ Fran, That's where Cath got it from.
@ Peter, especially as they started with fifty helpers but as word spread the rest (mostly locals) joined in to help including quite young children.
@ Mike, very much so, just as it should be. I would have jumped at the chance to be involved but I would hope the atmosphere would be sombre whilst being done with a release of feelings at the end
Ian
Saw this on a local news channel. What a great idea. Glad I found your blog. Mine (just launched) is The Amateur Military Historian
ReplyDeleteGlad you dropped by, really like the look of your new blog too.
DeleteLike most great ideas it's fairly simple and the fact something similar has been done in the UK (the artists are British) makes me think the prior event should be seen at the very least as inspiration.
Ian
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