Editorial
D-Day Overlord website
Why this site? An editorial signed by the creator and editor of the site: Marc Laurenceau
In 2003, I had the idea to work on this website, to share my passion for a long time: the Battle of Normandy. The Internet appeared to me as a privileged interface for learning and transmitting, understanding and discovering. Thus, from this date, I started to put on line the first pages of this site: D-Day Overlord represents today a real virtual memorial dedicated to those who fought and who gave their life for a ideal that exceeded them.
Various reasons motivated my decision to create this website. The first of them all is to pay tribute to the D-Day veterans. Indeed, it is essential for me to maintain the memory of the heroic deeds performed by these young soldiers so that the sacrifices made in Normandy from June to August 1944 are not forgotten. I am also interested in the issues and issues of fighting and this site allows me to share my studies and my investigations. The ultimate purpose of this site is to maintain the memory of the soldiers of the Battle of Normandy so that all generations can extract lessons to learn examples and better understand the consequences.
The D-Day Overlord site has become the French-speaking site dedicated to the most visited Battle of Normandy with more than 100,000 new users logged in each month. Developing such an important site implies an essential awareness of its responsibilities towards History and Internet users because the publications of this online book are accessible to all and at any time. The sources must be verified and the witnesses consulted. You can find the books that were useful for me to specify information in the framework of the writing of this site in the “Bibliography” section.
In recent years, the term “duty of remembrance” has continued to be used on all occasions, thus losing its true meaning. If we commemorate past events like the Normandy landings, an important moment in the construction of our current society is because the memory of man is fragile. We must remember because to forget past mistakes is somehow to be threatened with reliving them. The victory of the Allies during the Second World War, symbolized in this successful joint action on the beaches of Normandy, is an example of the fight against barbarism. To remember the efforts made by the Allies to gain victory during this war, and especially during the Normandy landing, is to remember that freedom and peace are at this price. The price of blood.
My duty of memory is to transmit the story of those men who died somewhere on these beaches or in a Normandy orchard. The story of those who sacrificed everything at a troubled time when they could live in the calm of their village.
Wanting to know in the most precise way is the goal taught me by one of the veterans of the Normandy landings, Maurice Chauvet, who landed on June 6, 1944 on Sword Beach with the 176 other commando French commander Kieffer. This cult of detail may sometimes seem incidental, but it is often rich in lessons, and fills all enthusiasts.
The site D-Day Overlord is interested in the battle of Normandy in all its aspects: in the historical part are added studies on the cinematographic documents dedicated to this period, the reports on the commemorations, photo galleries allowing you to discover Normandy today. The numerous studies on the Normandy campaign proposed by the D-Day Overlord site allow you to discover the complexity of this historic event whose consequences are not limited to military facts. Today, the new generations of many countries around the world see in these soldiers of freedom, come by the air and the sea fight hatred and barbarism, models of honor and sacrifice.
At a time when the witnesses of the Normandy landings and the Normandy battle are unfortunately fewer and fewer, the responsibility of historians and specialists is increasingly important for the new generations. It is in this spirit of homage to the liberators of D-Day and perpetuation of these events that I created the association “D-Day Overlord: Memory of the Battle of Normandy” (association law 1901). Open to all those concerned with safeguarding this historical heritage, she undertakes the organization of commemorations, guided tours, reports and support for projects related to D-Day.
One might think that a historical event is written once and for all, but it is not so. Like this site, which continues to grow and win multiple articles over time (with the online publication of more than 500 new pages per year), history is discovering new elements, new details. In parallel to the creation of new articles, an important work of enrichment of the explanatory subjects already available is carried out in order to offer you ever more complete data. This site wants to allow you to dive in the heart of the History to better make you understand this extraordinary event which is June 6, 1944, which must be perceived not only from this single day but through the study of a much larger period.
There is still a long way to go to put all the information concerning the Normandy landings online, but this is the future of this website.
Marc Laurenceau
