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Video length: 7 min
80 years of the Landing: investigators of history, they collect traces of the past
The commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Landings take place on June 6. In France, enthusiasts are diving back into history and searching for objects and traces of D-Day.
(France 2)
The commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Landings take place on June 6. In France, enthusiasts are diving back into history and searching for objects and traces of D-Day.
Enthusiasts dedicate their time to searching for objects and traces of the Second World War. They are called “lone investigators”, looking for parts of planes, pieces of scrap metal and have even made a museum of it. Michel Lerouell is fascinated by the remains of a bomber that fell in 1944… which they find in 2024, in the middle of a field. His picking is meticulous.
“They have been in the ground for 80 years”wonders Michel Lerouell. “I think it’s a part of our history that we must not forget. We are free because all these guys came to die in our fields”he recalls. “I think we need to keep track of it.”, insists Michel Lerouell, agricultural worker passionate about history. Enthusiasts like him have even made the Châteaudun air base (Eure-et-Loire) into a museum. Successively bombed then requisitioned by the Germans in 1940, the air base was abandoned. The objects in the exhibition were gleaned from the surrounding area.
