On a recent short break to Normandy Jools came across this wonderful scupture which commemorates the 1940s Resistance movement in France. It was unveiled in 2021 near the small village of Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont not far from Utah beach. The sculpture was created by artist Stephen Spears and features three life size bronze figures symbolizing the different components of the Resistance.
– A middle-aged male guerrilla fighter armed with a Sten gun
– A young woman using clandestine communications equipment
– A teenage boy on a bicycle, representing reconnaissance and message‑carrying
The project was started by an ex-US Special Forces Veteran Captain Joseph Ivanov who has always been fascinated by the Resistance movement, how much it achieved and how little its is commemorated. Funding was via private donorship and an organisation based in New York called Operation Democracy who are a non-profit making organisation dedicated to fostering friendship between the US and France in order to reaffirm the historic bonds between the two countries around the time of World War Two. Around the main sculpture is a low wall topped with dozens of bronze parachute canopies to represent the SOE and OSS operatives that were dropped behind the lines and were so often betrayed, captured or killed on duty.
This is one of many ‘new’ memorials and markers across Normandy and while the sentiment is understood, I for one am a little concerned about the direction this seems to be leading. The donors are predominantly American and with their money comes influence about what sculptures are raised, where they are placed and importantly what text accompanies them on any information panels. For example another memorial was unveiled in June this year to remember the U.S Eighth Air Force and is a stunning piece of work. However it has been placed at La Fiere just outside Ste-Mere-Eglise right in front of the Iron Mike statue that has been there for many years stoicly looking out at the battlefield of the causeway where so many Paratroopers fought to seize and hold out on D-Day. The location has nothing to do with the Mighty Eighth and it now spolis the view and and takes away from the Iron Mike statue. The positioning of the new mighty Eighth statues is wrong on many levels.
People will often cite space and access being key deciders to the positioning of new memorials, which are obvious valid issues but surely not at the expense of another existing statue, the overriding decider must be relevance to location.
There also appears a danger that information passed on via the visitor panels can be skewed to suit the donor/ creator rather than the facts of history. For instance, the resistance memorial information panel makes rather a lot of the American OSS involvement compared to the efforts of the British networks who had been working for two whole years before any US involvement. On another Battlefield, information panels carrying maps showing movement of the British 52nd Lowland Division are shown by Scotttish Flags rather than the Union flag. Is this a history re-write by stealth? Small things maybe, but perhaps they are leading to a re-write of history to suit a modern narrative.
