When I visited my mother last month for the Pegasus half-marathon, celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the D Day landing were starting in Normandy. And she talked with us of the days around the event, when as a 5y old she had to flee (under German occupation troops’orders) her family house in Saint-Lô, that had been hit by Allied shells and stay with other refugees in the nearby countryside, for several weeks, eating meat from cows killed during the combats and the few products the local farm was able to provide. When the Allied troops managed to push further inland, they returned to the house, which had been mostly looted, and decided to move to my grandfather’s birthplace, 50km away, by foot and with a wheelbarrow to carry the 5y and 4y old girls. They arrived to find that my great-grand-mother’s house had also been destroyed, by a bomb this time, but that she was alive and leaving with relative in the countryside, which is where they spent the remaining months of 1944, before settling for 35y in another small western Normandy town… During this conversation, she repeatedly mentioned how strongly she was relating with the victims of the current refugee crises, both in Ukraine and Gaza, in that she knew from experience how quickly and irremediably one could become a refugee thrown on the dangerous roads of a war zone, with hardly any remaining belongings…
Archive for D Day
anyone can turn into a refugee
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Running, Travel with tags D Day, Gaza, Gaza war, Normandy, refugees, Russian invasion, Saint-Lô, Ukraine invasion, World War II, WW II on June 23, 2024 by xi'anD Day Pegasus bridge half-marathon [1:23:42, 90th / 4883, 1st over 55, 13⁰, 117+m]
Posted in Kids, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Caen, Courir en Normandie, D Day, glider, Les Courants de la Liberté, M5M, Malherbe, Normandie, Normandy, Pegasus bridge, road race on June 4, 2024 by xi'an
I had a great time at the Pegasus half-marathon, except for the freezing hundred minutes stuck at the starting point on one side of the bridge before the race started, when I had to escape the cold and the wind by staying between two edges! Great start over this historical (if since rebuilt) bridge (much shorter than the Golden Gate bridge!) accompanied by bagpipes, if not from a large band!, not too many runners to pass over the first kilometre thanks to the division into several waves, even though I was not strategically located close enough to the starting line, and quickly falling into a sub-4 pace that I kept for most of the race. Great that my family was there at the arrival line. Despite the proximity to the Channel and the lack of protection through the half-grown wheat fields, the wind was not too much of an hindrance and the 110m overall climb was dispersed enough over most of the race hence never impacting my pace for long. A major plus, the final 5k’s were mostly downhill which helped a lot with this usually challenging part (even though I do not look particularly serene on the pics)! I essentially stayed with the same runners over the second half of the race, only for a few young ‘uns passing me in the last 300m within the stadium (which sits next to my high school, Lycée Malherbe). I was thus more than happy with my time (and with my higher volume training in the prior month, with a week at 100km), a minute faster than planned and two minutes earlier than in Boulogne, but did not expect any podium position in such a large and competitive race and only checked my ranking after getting home (my mother’s home) and showering, sort of “too late” for attending the award ceremony but I do not think I would have gone anyway. Next half planned in Argentan, end of September, where else?!
75 years ago
Posted in pictures with tags D Day, June 1944, Normandy, Normandy landings, Omaha Beach, Operation Overlord, Port-en-Bessin, Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Second World War, Vierville-sur-Mer on June 6, 2019 by xi'an
trip to the past
Posted in Books, pictures with tags cavalry, D Day, Dragons regiment, first World War, French army, Germany, Gustrow, refugees, war prisonner, WW I on January 6, 2019 by xi'an
When visiting my mother for the Xmas break, she showed me this picture of her grand-father, Médéric, in his cavalry uniform, taken before the First World War, in 1905. During the war, as an older man, he did not come close to the front lines, but died from a disease caught from the horses he was taking care of. Two other documents I had not seen before were these refugee cards that my grand-parents got after their house in Saint-Lô got destroyed on June 7, 1944.
And this receipt for the tinned rabbit meat packages my grand-mother was sending to a brother-in-law who was POW in Gustrow, Germany, receipt that she kept despite the hardships she faced in the years following the D Day landing.
Juno Beach [jatp]
Posted in pictures, Travel with tags Abbaye d'Arbenne massacre, Caen, Canada, Canadian troops, Colin Gibson, Courseulles, D Day, D-Day beaches, June 1944, Juno Beach, Juno Park, memorial, Normandy, scultpture, Second World War, war prisonner, WWII on January 2, 2019 by xi'an
