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The remains of a D-Day landing barge were discovered on the beach at Merville, Normandy. Archaeologists denounce the town hall’s clearing of the site.

April 13, 2017: A landing barge discovered in Normandy… then destroyed.
Source: France 3 Normandie

From a piece of metal… to a D-Day landing craft

It started out as a simple 10-centimeter piece of metal protruding from the ground over a meter in length. The hiker who made this strange discovery this Tuesday morning decided to alert the technical services of the municipality of Merville-Franceville (14). Once on site, the municipal officials began digging and quickly realized that they were dealing with a much larger object than they initially imagined.

Excavators were called in to assist, and what was initially only a piece of metal 10 centimeters wide and one meter long turned out to be 11 meters long and 3 meters wide. The excavated object was in very poor condition. It must be said that it was over 70 years old. The sand and the tide had not spared it. But this relic, made of wood and metal, is nonetheless exceptional because it is a true piece of history: a landing barge.

The remains destroyed by the municipal services of Merville-Franceville

Archaeologists denounce the destruction of the landing barge by the town hall services. Michel L’Hour, Director of the DRASSM [Department of Underwater and Submarine Archaeological Research] is furious: “This is the lowest level of historical heritage intelligence,” he asserts, following the discovery of a D-Day landing barge on the beach of Merville-Franceville by the town hall’s technical services.

For the mayor of Merville-Franceville, Olivier Paz, “The DRASSM is made up of around thirty civil servants in Marseille. If we have to call people to Marseille every time we discover a Rommel’s asparagus or a tetrapod, if we have to wait for them to come to do what we do here between two tides, life will become complicated, and accidents will be numerous.”

2017 news of the Normandy landing beaches