Ceremonies of June 6, 2004
2004, 60th anniversary of the Landing
An American hospital reconstituted in tribute to Cecil BreedenRead the rewritten text
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One hundred and thirty collectors based in Vierville-sur-Mer have reconstructed an American hospital in tribute to Cecil Breeden. This nurse had treated and comforted his comrades under fire and mortar shells. Died in 1991, he had, according to the article, neither requested nor received official recognition.
His brothers Jimmy and Robert, also former U.S. Army soldiers during the Landing, were to visit the camp on a Friday afternoon. Gilbert, a member of the Tourcoing club, brought their story closer to that of the film Soldier Ryan.
The collectors had reconstituted a hospital of the type of those installed fifteen days after the start of the Landing: operating room, period medical equipment and bottles, stretchers sometimes used as beds for the participants. An armory presented the weapons of the 1939-1945 war, some of which were later reused during the Algerian war. The organizers said they wanted to convey a message of peace, rather than playing war.
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An American hospital reconstituted in tribute to Cecil BreedenRead the rewritten text
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For the sixtieth anniversary of the Landing, seven collectors' clubs from northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands have reconstituted an American hospital in the town of Vierville-sur-Mer. An operating room was in this camp open to the public. The tribute was dedicated to nurse Cecil Breeden; his two brothers, veterans of the Landing, were expected on Friday afternoon.
The one hundred and thirty collectors installed on site had arrived the previous weekend with more than two hundred tons of equipment. Jean-Luc Ghisquier, head of the camp, stressed that some Dutch people had traveled more than fifteen hundred kilometers at the wheel of GMCs or jeeps.
The cut presents Cecil Breeden as a nurse on Company A of the 116th U.S. Infantry Regiment and reports that he had landed with his unit at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.
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Seven artists create a sand sculpture for the White HouseRead the rewritten text
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Seven sculptors of four nationalities have undertaken an ephemeral work on the esplanade facing the beach of Vierville-sur-Mer. Seventy tons of sand, collected on the five landing beaches, had been gathered in Omaha for this project requested by the White House memory commission and intended to be filmed.
Contacted in December, John Gowdy and Dale Murdock had brought the team together. The first, a firefighter in Atlantic City, had found partners, including an American television. The United States ambassador to France had facilitated the administrative procedures and the town hall of Vierville had welcomed the project. Dale Murdock, an American artist who has been living in Caen for several years, highlighted the quality of the site.
Work began on Wednesday, May 26. The sculpture represented the sea and a barge landing soldiers on a beach cluttered with obstacles, with an ephemeral stele at its base. The team planned to complete it on Saturday after four days and 200 hours of work, each stage being filmed for the White House.
The artists intended to keep it until the ceremonies on June 6 with water and a little glue. Nightly meetings with the children were planned the following week, around the work lit by candles. Dale Murdock hoped to make known in France a practice that was still not widespread.
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A sand sculpture evokes the events of 1944
A choir of Dallas police officers in the church of ViervilleRead the rewritten text
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On a Tuesday evening, the church of Vierville-sur-Mer was almost full for a concert organized by the Pays d'accueil touristique du Bessin. Christian Nisse, president of the ADTLB, presented this choir from Dallas, United States.
The uniformed police officers began with La Marseillaise, then the American anthem, in front of an audience including many foreign visitors. Their manager expressed the pleasure of this stay in France, which many choristers were discovering for the first time.
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details The Dallas police choir in the church
6 June 2004
Opposite fireworks on June 5 in the evening
Below, time H at 6:30 a.m., 1 hour after sunrise, June 6, 2004, 60 years later.
The weather was clear for this birthday
