Day 10 - Point 67 and the Falaise Gap

Day 10, the final day of the battlefields tour was another extremely emotional day for the tour participants. Our first stop was at Point 67, the most northern part of Verrières Ridge. From this hill you have an amazing view over the low lying areas around you, particularly the road from Caen to Falaise, hence strategically a very important point to hold. The battle for the ridge ensued as Canadian troops tried to push on after having liberated Caen. The 20 km stretch from Courseulles-sur-Mer to Caen had taken from D-Day until almost the middle of July, which serves as a bit of an indicator how contested this section was.
The Battle for Verrières Ridge is seen as Canada’s costliest engagement of the Second World War. The memorial park on top of the hill was created in 2001 and commemorates all those regiments involved.

After the visit of the hill, the next stop was at the Bretteville sur Laize Canadian War Cemetery. Here 2793 Canadian soldiers and 79 airmen are buried, including Private Gérard Doré from the Fusiliers Mont Royal, who was only 16 years old when he died and who is believed to be the youngest Canadian to have died in the Second World War.
The stop at the cemetery was however not just a simple visit to pay our respects, rather the group was part of an official ceremony that appears to happen every year around this time to commemorate the war dead in conjunction with the liberation of this area.

After the ceremony which had included the laying of several wreaths, the group went on to Falaise to enjoy the lunches that had been prepared for us by our hotel. Sitting on the steps to city hall, the town seem eerily devoid of people on this early Sunday afternoon. A few people could be found around the castle area which was once held by William the Conqueror. Our tour group however did not visit that feature but rather explored the Memorial Museum to Wartime Civilians.
The museum visit started of with a very powerful movie which is shown in a room with a glass floor. This allows the viewers to appreciate that a house used to stand in that very location. The movie then essentially shows the destruction of that house and others around it through the aerial bombardment that preceded the arrival of the Allies in the Calvados region of Normandy.

The evening, and essentially the tour, ended with a lovely dinner at a restaurant in Bayeux called Le Pommier. All tour participants were also asked to give a short speech to sum up or point out the high light of their tour experiences.