Khaki T-shirt - Normandie

Normandy was occupied during the Second World War. The Channel Islands were the only British Crown Dependencies occupied by Germany during the war. In 1940, Guernsey was the scene of Operation Ambassador, one of the first raids carried out by British commandos against the occupying Germans. In August 1942, an Anglo-Canadian raid took place in Dieppe (Operation Jubilee), a rehearsal for the landings in June 1944.

Normandy was one of the starting points for the Allied reconquest of Europe. On June 6, 1944, Operation Neptune, the assault phase of Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious operation in world military history, was launched simultaneously on several beaches in Calvados and La Manche.

Many towns and cities were destroyed in the Allied bombardment. The memory of the battle is present everywhere in Normandy, notably in the many vast military cemeteries, the blockhouses that defy the passage of time, the museums including the great Caen memorial, the streets that bear the names of the Allied actors or regiments who took part in the liberation of the region, or the concrete caissons that made up the dikes of the artificial harbour off Arromanches.