British Normandy Memorial

According to the British Normandy Memorial website / https://www.britishnormandymemorial.org/ “the making of the British Normandy Memorial started with a suggestion from a Normandy Veteran. In July 2015, George Batts – a young soldier in the Royal Engineers on D-Day – met the BBC broadcaster Nicholas Witchell. George pointed out that the United Kingdom, alone among the principal Allied nations of World War Two, did not have its own national memorial in Normandy recording the names of all those under British command who died on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy. The Normandy Memorial Trust was established and work began to bring together the key players. One of the first was the architect Liam O’Connor, designer of the British Armed Forces Memorial in Staffordshire, UK and the Bomber Command Memorial in London. In September 2016, Witchell, O’Connor and a colleague Andrew Whitmarsh found the perfect site for the memorial. It was on farmland overlooking “Gold Beach” close to the town of Ver sur Mer. In the months that followed they prepared a detailed feasibility study for the British government and discussions began with the then Mayor of Ver sur Mer, Philippe Onillon, and local landowners. In March 2017 the British government announced that it would contribute £20 million towards the construction of the British Normandy Memorial. Further substantial sums were raised from private benefactors. A board of distinguished figures was brought together to supervise the project, under the chairmanship of Lord Peter Ricketts, a former British Ambassador to France and including two former heads of the British army and a former Private Secretary to Her Majesty the Queen. Throughout 2017 and 2018 work continued to acquire the land, finalise the Memorial’s design and engage with the French authorities to obtain permission to build the Memorial. Another major focus was the bringing together of the nearly 22,500 names for inscription on the Memorial. This was an original piece of research led by Andrew Whitmarsh and Jane Furlong. The Memorial site was formally inaugurated on 6 June 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day, in a ceremony led by the then British Prime Minister Theresa May and the French President Emmanuel Macron. Despite delays caused by the Covid pandemic, the memorial was completed in the autumn of 2020, in readiness for its official opening on 6 June 2021 by HRH The Prince of Wales assisted at the memorial by the British Ambassador to France, Lord Llewellyn.” These photos were taken in August 2023.