Posts Tagged ‘Abbaye’d Ardenne’

This August the weather in France is perfect—blue skies for photographs and moody clouds for paintings. I came to Europe to paint. World-class museums are filled with landscapes of the Norman and Flemish fields. This land is valuable both for its artistic and agricultural production. But it is cherished for another reason. This is where the world came to fight, not once but twice. More than 111,650 Canadians died as a result of the First and Second World Wars. They are buried here. As an artist, the juxtaposition of war and peace interests me. I imagine European citizens picnicking with their families on the same shores Canada stormed—busy with modern lives on old battlefields. I want to see if remembrance exists in the off-season—when no one knows company is coming.

All those involved in the planning for D-Day knew there were two quite separate problems in securing a beachhead. The first task, breaking through the crust of defences known as the Atlantic Wall was rightly seen as the major challenge, but preparation and rigorous training was also required to carry out the advance inland to widen and deepen the bridgehead. The 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, known as the Highland Brigade, had been selected to lead the Canadian advance, so Brigadier D.G. “Ben” Cunningham and his battalion commanders prepared detailed plans.