Remembering Fallen Heroes

As we come up to 100th anniversary of the start of WW1 our thoughts move on from the marking of the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy on 6th June 1944, 70 years ago, or so I thought. 
In England we were fortunate enough not to have suffered German occupation but for the French it was another matter altogether. For them D-Day was just the beginning of something they had waited years for - liberation.
This came home to me during a visit to Normandy this last weekend, when I discovered that across the area, on successive days, local villagers were celebrating and commemorating the anniversary of their individual liberation as the allied troops moved south from the site of the D-Day landings. Representatives of local communities gathered at the British Cemetery in St. Charles de Percy to mark the momentous day upon which their communities once again belonged to them. The site itself, donated by the French government in gratitude, provides a moving final resting place for those who fell in pursuit of freedom. I was honoured to be invited along to witness veteran Gunner Colin Yate, age 92, and who served in the 153rd Field Regiment of the Leicestershire Yeomanry lay a wreath at the site, where many of his comrades are buried, including just one from the Somerset Light Infantry, Private T V Kendall. The graves here mark soldiers, sailors and airmen who were ambushed by the German Panzers as they made their way south. The youngest was just 17. For me, a salutary lesson in the futility of war; one we seem not to have learned from but which is forever in the minds of those whose lives were saved.