![]() ![]() Some four thousand tons of French Massangis stone were shipped to their works in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland where the names were cut before the blocks were shipped to Ver sur Mer where McConnell’s teams assembled them. The stonework was in the expert hands of British stonemasons S. ![]() The main contractors were the French company Eiffage-Route. 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.Ĭonstruction work began soon afterwards. Throughout 20 work continued to acquire the land, finalise the Memorial’s design and engage with the French authorities to obtain permission to build the Memorial.Īnother major focus was the bringing together of the nearly 22,500 names for inscription on the Memorial. Further substantial sums were raised from private benefactors.Ī 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. In March 2017 the British government announced that it would contribute £20 million towards the construction of the British Normandy Memorial. 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. ![]() It was on farmland overlooking “Gold Beach” close to the town of Ver sur Mer. In September 2016, Witchell, O’Connor and a colleague Andrew Whitmarsh found the perfect site for the memorial. 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. The Normandy Memorial Trust was established and work began to bring together the key players. 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. In July 2015, George Batts – a young soldier in the Royal Engineers on D-Day – met the BBC broadcaster Nicholas Witchell. It started with a suggestion from a Normandy Veteran. ![]()
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