This 52-heactare (130-acre) cemetery was established on 14 October, 1918, by the US Army on land taken by the 32^nd Infantry Division. This land was ceded to the United States in perpetuity by the French Government to establish a permanent, tax-free burial site.

This cemetery contains the remains of 14,246 soldiers, most of whom fell during the US First Army’s operations of 26 September to 11 November, 1918. In 1922, the bodies buried in temporary cemeteries around the region, but also in the Vosges and in Occupied Germany, were brought here to their final resting place. Many of those who died at Arkhangelsk, Russia, were also buried in this cemetery. Among the tombs, 486 hold the remains of unidentified soldiers.

The Memorial, a typical example of Romanesque architecture, faces north at the top of a hill that slopes down to the tombs. It comprises a chapel flanked by two loggias, inside which is the Wall of the Missing. The outside walls and the columns are in Euville Coquillier stone, while the interior walls are in Salamandre Travertine.

The names of the 954 missing soldiers who gave their lives for their country and whose bodies were never found or identified are engraved on the Wall of the Missing. This necropolis was built by the architects York and Sawyer of New York. The infrastructures, as we can see them today, were completed in 1932. The cemetery was inaugurated on Memorial Day, 1937, for the twentieth anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War One.

This monument rises nearly 60 metres above the ruins of the former village of Montfaucon, built at the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside. Before it was taken by the US 37^th and 79^th Divisions on 27 September, 1918, this site provided the German troops with a remarkable observation point.

The monument commemorates the victory of the US First Army in the Meuse - Argonne offensive of 26 September to 11 November, 1918, and honours the heroism of the French Army on the front before this period.

American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC)

This US government agency operates 24 American cemeteries and 25 commemorative monuments, war monuments and other memorials in 15 countries. The Commission works to fulfil the vision of its first chairman, General of the Armies John J. Pershing. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, promised that “time will not dim the glory of their deeds”.

Meuse - Argonne American Cemetery

55110 Romagne sous Montfaucon - France

Tel.: 03 29 85 14 18

Fax: 03 29 58 13 96

e-mail: meuse-argonne@abmc.gov

American Battle Monuments Commission

68 rue du 19 Janvier BP 50 92380 Garches

Tel.: 01 47 01 37

American Battle Monuments Commission

The Musée de la Grande Guerre was officially opened on 11 November 2011 by the Pays de Meaux combined area council. The furthest point of the German advance and the site of the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, Meaux and its neighbouring communes possess historic heritage which, until then, had been undervalued and was little known to the general public, since the Great War is not generally associated with the Île-de-France region. First off, then, the museum serves as a reminder that the front came right up to the edge of Paris, and that the “miracle of the Marne”, just one month after the outbreak of hostilities, was the victory that was to decide the course of the conflict. Besides its historical legitimacy, the museum, like any major structure, plays the role of a lever of development for the region. It contributes to shaping a new image while mobilising different actors around a shared project that can benefit everyone, both in terms of culture and tourism and in terms of networks.

Origins

The Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux has its origins in a meeting between Jean-Pierre Verney, a passionate, self-taught historian who, over more than 45 years, collected 50 000 objects and documents on the First World War – one of the largest private collections in Europe – and Jean-François Copé, chairman of the Pays de Meaux combined area council. Copé took the decision to buy the collection in 2005 and founded a museum on the First World War, at a time when Verney was preparing to sell overseas, having found no local authority willing to take it. It was an obvious choice, given the sheer scale of the Pays de Meaux area (18 communes with a total population of 85 000) and the fact that a number of its villages still bear visible traces of the Battle of the Marne (memorials, cemeteries, etc.), including the grave of French poet Charles Péguy, killed on 5 September 1914.

A museum on a human scale

From the outset, the Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux was intended to be for all visitors. Its bold design and contemporary layout, at once educational, sensitive and immersive, contribute to making it as accessible as possible.  This proximity to visitors can be explained in part by the desire to approach the conflict from a human perspective, through the everyday lives not only of the soldiers, but of women and children, continually switching between the front and the home front. All the nations that took part in the war are represented here, namely through the collection of uniforms, the overall intention being to present the universality of suffering and violence, whatever side of no man’s land your camp happens to be on

The object at the heart of the display

The exhibition is deliberately open and unconstrained, in order to allow each visitor to choose their own route, and thus build their own history. The main display, which presents the First Battle of the Marne (1914) alongside the Second Battle of the Marne (1918), clearly presents to visitors the passage from the 19th to the 20th century. Between these two key mobile battles at the beginning and end of the war, the presentation of the static war with its front comprised of trenches offers an insight into the notion of stalemate. Laid out in the main body of the museum, here is where the big hardware (lorries, aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, etc.) is on show, making the museum a unique place where visitors can see the full range of objects and documents bearing witness to the conflict. This main display is complemented by a themed display: eight spaces look at topics that cut across the conflict (A New War, Bodies and Suffering, Globalisation, A Mobilised Society, etc.), adding new ways into the subject. The presentation is different for each of the spaces, thereby breaking up the monotony of the experience, as each new setting renews visitors’ interest. Obviously, the objects in the collection are at the heart of the display: they lend and take on meaning in their relationship with the space and in the dialogue they establish with the museum resources, and ultimately move visitors to ask questions about their own memories. By arousing interest and curiosity, the museum encourages visitors to interrogate their own personal history.

An innovative interaction

If visitors are greeted by ambient sounds even before they set foot in the museum, once inside, they find a whole series of objects to touch in the displays. Known as “martyr objects”, they belong to the collections and offer the public an opportunity to handle materials and shapes. There is also a wealth of interactive tools that aim to put the visitor in the driving seat: wearing special glasses to experience 3D stereoscopic views, feeling the weight of soldiers’ kit bags or coils of barbed wire, guessing what objects are in the archaeological niches, educational games to grasp the economic impact of the war or discover the different belligerent nations, interactive terminals to offer a deeper insight into the collection. All of this makes for an attractive and dynamic visitor experience, involving the different senses, thereby aiding the immersion in what is a complex subject.

The Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux is today an essential site for discovering the history of the First World War, and the area has become a remembrance tourism destination. The years of the centenary commemorations contributed to that process, which is sure to continue as the museum celebrates its tenth anniversary with a special season in 2021-22.

Sources : © Musée de la Grande Guerre

The Battle of Cantigny, which took place from 28 to 31 May 1918, remains extremely important in the history of the United States as it was the first major American battle in the Great War.

The Battle of Cantigny helped to contain the German offensives during the spring of 1918, giving newfound confidence and morale to the Allies and demonstrating the American soldiers’ fighting skills. General John J. Pershing wrote, "It was a question of pride for the American Expeditionary Forces that the division’s troops, in their first battle... should display the moral strength and courage of the veterans, holding on to land taken and refusing to let the enemy take the slightest advantage".

Over 1,000 American soldiers were put out of combat during this battle and 199 of them died. At Cantigny, the 1st Division began a series of American successes, powerfully amplified by the heroic position of the 2nd and 3rd US Divisions along the Marne a few days later. With nearly one million Americans in France at the time, the Allies’ morale was about to change, from a defeatist spirit to the certainty of victory soon to come. Cantigny was the first battle of the US 1st Division (now known as the 1st Infantry Division) which was again to make a name for itself in 1944 during the attack on Omaha Beach in Normandy on 6 June.

Many famous Americans fought at Cantigny, including George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during World War II and later Secretary of Defence and the Secretary of State who implemented the Marshall Plan. Robert R. McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune who changed the name of his property to Cantigny when he returned to the United States. Upon his death, the property was transformed into a park open to the public in keeping with his last wishes; a foundation that bears his name was set up along with a museum dedicated to the history of the 1st Division from 1917 to the present, in Wheaton, Illinois. There are several monuments in Cantigny, in the Somme department, that serve to remind us of their exploits. A small private museum houses vestiges of the battle and can be visited by appointment.

"Pays de Parmentier" Tourist Office
5 Place du Général de Gaulle 80500 Montdidier
Tel.: +33 (0) 322 789 200 Fax : +33 (0) 322 780 088
Mail: ot-montdidier@orange.fr

Somme Somme Tourism Committee

“Pays Parmentier” Tourism

 First Division Museum

La Somme 14-18

Last February a memorial was opened on the site of the former Royallieu internment camp. As place of history, it is a reminder of events, setting them within the context of the Second World War and the Nazi policies of repression and extermination. As a place of remembrance, it pays homage to all those who were detained there before being deported to Germany and Poland or shot as hostages. In 1939, the Royallieu barracks near Compiègne in the Oise département was used as a military hospital before being converted by the Germans in June 1940 into a camp where they brought French and British prisoners of war.

In 1941, they turned it into a " permanent concentration camp for active enemy individuals" under the official name of Frontstalag 122, which became a "German police detention camp" by virtue of decree on the 30th December 1941. Resistance fighters, political and unionist militants, Jews, civilians arrested in raids and foreigners etc. - more than 45,000 of them would pass through there before being deported to Nazi concentration and extermination camps. "I got out of the last departure and really hope not to be in on the next one. I am here with some really nice, good people: communists, Gaullists, royalists, priests, aristocrats and country folk - it's an extraordinary mixture", the poet Robert Desnos, who was interned on the 20th March 1944, wrote to his girlfriend. A short respite. A death train took him away on the 27th April to Flöha en Saxe and he was to succumb to typhoid on the 8th June 1945 at Terezin. It was from the camp at Royallieu that the very first deportation train was to leave French soil on the 27th March 1942. It took over a thousand Jews to Auschwitz, as did the next one on the 5th June. A third convoy, consisting mostly of communist and unionist hostages, left Compiègne on the 6th July. Royallieu was thus to become a transit camp for detainees, for the most part political and resistance fighters, prior to their deportation.
A place for remembering Research carried out by the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation at the History Department of the Ministry of Defence's archive office for victims of contemporary conflicts has allowed the identification of the departure of twenty-six large convoys, in addition to a dozen small convoys between 1942 and 1944. Including the first two convoys of deported Jews, this makes a total of forty convoys. Since the camp also served as a place for detaining hostages, other internees were shot in the surrounding forests once reprisal measures had been agreed. It is to all these people that the internment and deportation memorial is dedicated. This has just been built on part of the former camp by the town of Compiègne in partnership with the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation, the Defence Department (Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives, SGA/DMPA), the Regional Council of Picardy, the General Council of the Oise, the Heritage Foundation and the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (a government body in charge of investing and lending public money). The historian and filmmaker Christian Delage created the journey through history. The architect and scenographer Jean-Jacques Raynaud designed the setting. The result is solemn, due as much to the materials used - glass, concrete and stone - as to the way the floors and walls in the three preserved buildings that remain out of the original twenty-five have been stripped back to their initial condition, and the use of sounds and images to set the scene. Opposite the entrance stands a wall to guide visitors towards the reception hall. Made up of a series of glass pillars bearing the names of all the deportees and internees of the camp at Royallieu identified to date, its purpose is to give the internees back their identities. It is through these names that visitors are introduced to the site. Around the buildings is what is today a garden of remembrance, as well as an exhibition area: plans of the internment camp, group photographs of the guards and written and recorded accounts accompany visitors as they retrace the history of the site.
The memorial provides two routes that are complementary to and inseparable from each other. One of them, the result of the hard work of historians, puts the history of the camp in context; the other encourages visitors to follow their own personal remembrance trail. The history is mapped out along a frieze running the length of the walls of the ten halls that form the tour. It covers in succession: the historic context, internment and the daily life of the camp, transportation on the deportation trains and forced labour and death in the Nazi camps. Documents and archive films illustrate the descriptions. Letters, photographs, drawings and recorded eyewitness accounts tell of life at Royallieu. In places, the images projected onto the walls and floors dominate the whole room. The remembrance trails themselves are an opportunity to meet the many witnesses, who tell of how they survived their passage through this transit camp. These accounts, in several different voices, demonstrate the wide diversity in the backgrounds of the detainees, their opinions and the conditions in which they were held. These men and women are constantly present: their names, their faces, their words and their written accounts remain with the visitor. The buildings are both exhibition halls and "exhibits" at the same time. The walls, floors and ceilings are all in their original condition: the tiles and lino have been removed, to reveal the original rough concrete that internees would have trodden; the false ceilings from the 1970's have been taken down to show the barracks' plastered ceilings; recent paint work has been scraped off to reveal the different layers of materials, colours and decoration beneath.
The words of witnesses The memorial provides many and varied sound recordings. Chosen carefully, some of them contribute in setting the scene. Broadcast all around the place, they are triggered automatically as they detect visitors' movement. Others are transmitted by an audio-guide, available to every visitor. In this way everyone can follow his own audio route, in his own language and at his own speed. The audio-guide can also be used to develop tours for specific groups - young children or the partially sighted - and themed tours etc. The words of the witnesses resonate around the place. They resound off the metal and wooden chairs in the garden and leap out at you as you pass through the corridors of the buildings. It is these different accounts, organised by theme, such as arrival at the camp, daily and social life, ways of surviving, solidarity, loneliness, leaving for Germany etc., that best tell the history of the camp. These sound montages have been created from documents in the huge audio-visual collection built up by the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation and from new accounts recorded especially for the memorial. At times, the scenography calls on the emotions in a personal way, encouraging visitors to attune their feelings with those of the place itself and to remember rather then to discover. This is why, for example, on the floor in the barracks the positions where the beds would have been are marked using a single line to draw their outlines, extending up the walls to indicate bunk beds. The resulting impression of being cramped together is immediately apparent. In the same spirit, pictures of men and women are projected onto the walls very slowly, one after the other. Letters sent by prisoners to their families have been collected in two virtual albums that are projected onto two table screens, whilst at the same time being read aloud by actors. The tour ends in a room dedicated to the history of deportation, genocide and the punishment of criminals.
The contribution of the Defence Department Through the general administration department's Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives, the deputy minister for ex-servicemen awarded a grant of two million Euros spread over 2005 and 2006, as a contribution to the creation of this place of remembrance. In addition, the Defence Department, now the owner of the site of the former barracks at Royallieu, transferred the management of two hectares of land to the town of Compiègne and it is on this land that the Internment and Deportation Memorial was built.
Internment and Deportation Memorial Camp de Royallieu 2 bis, rue des Martyrs de la liberté 60200 Compiègne Tel. 03 44 96 37 00 E-mail: memorial@compiegne.fr

Located some twenty kilometres southwest of St. Mihiel Cemetery in Thiaucourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle department) and some fifteen kilometres from the town of St. Mihiel, the Montsec American Monument, built on a 270-metre hill, overlooks Madine Lake.

Produced by sculptor Egerton Swarthout, the monument, built with Euville limestone in 1930, commemorates the attacks carried out by the American Army from 12 to 14 September 1918 and from 9 to 11 November 1918 to take the St. Mihiel salient.

A large walkway leads to an open-air colonnade made up of fluted Doric columns supporting an entablature bearing the names of the towns, alternating with laurel wreaths.

At the centre of the colonnade is a bronze map illustrating the location of the St. Mihiel salient fronts. Damaged during fighting in 1944, the structure was restored four years later. Access to the monument is free.

Montsec American Monument Head toward Saint-Mihiel.

At Loupmont, continue toward Apremont-la-Forêt and then "Massif Fortifié de Liouville".

Montsec Town Hall

8 rue de l'Eglise - 55300 Montsec

Tel.: +33 (0)3 29 90 42 83

Le musée franco-américain du château de Blérancourt, unique musée consacré à des relations entre deux pays, et plus spécifiquement à la France et aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique, est situé à 120 km au nord de Paris et à 15 km de la gare de Noyon.

Construit en 1612 sur les plans du célèbre architecte Salomon de Brosse, le Château de Blérancourt fut la demeure de la riche famille des Potiers de Gesvres, avant démantelement pendant la Révolution. En ruines à la fin du19ème siècle, il est confié en 1917 par l’Armée française à Anne Morgan, fille du fameux banquier et collectionneur américain John-Pierpont Morgan. A la tête d’une association d’aide aux populations des régions sinistrées par la guerre, le Comité pour les Régions Dévastées, elle poursuit jusqu’en 1924 son action humanitaire et participe à la reconstruction de la région Picardie grâce aux missions suivantes : service d’infirmières-visiteuses, ravitaillement, aide à la lecture publique, foyers et jardins d’enfants, scoutisme, sports et fêtes. Grâce à,un parc automobile de Ford-T, les volontaires peuvent ainsi desservir 130 villages à partir de 5 centres établis à Blérancourt, Coucy-le-château, Anizy, Vic-sur-Aisne et Soissons. Au plus près des populations sinistrées, elles participent activement à une reconstruction morale et sociale et apportent la joie de vivre dans une région détruite à 90 % lors du conflit mondial.

Au lendemain de la guerre, Anne Morgan rachète le château (1919), fait restaurer en 1924 les deux pavillons d'angle pour y installer le musée de la coopération franco-américaine, puis en 1930 l'aile nord du Château, suivie par l'aile sud en 1938.

A l’origine dédié à la participation française à la guerre d’Indépendance et surtout à l’aide américaine durant la Première Guerre mondiale, le projet culturel du musée s’est ensuite étendu aux relations artistiques franco-américaines, présentées dans le pavillon Gould construit en 1989 par les architectes Yves Lion et Alan Lewitt.

Le musée fait actuellement l’objet d’un chantier de complète rénovation afin d’augmenter la surface d’exposition et de valoriser les vestiges archéologiques majeurs (maison-forte médiévale) découverts pendant les fouilles réalisées avant travaux.

Réouverture du musée franco-américain de Blérancourt après complète rénovation, automne 2017.

Visites et ateliers pédagogiques :

https://museefrancoamericain.fr/activites-pedagogiques

• Centre de documentation et contact(s)

Bibliothèque franco-américaine : La bibliothèque franco-américaine est consacrée aux relations entre la France et les États-Unis. Située dans le cadre exceptionnel d'un pavillon du XVIIe siècle, elle comprend plus de 6 000 ouvrages.

• Ouverte aux lecteurs sur simple demande écrite.
• Service pédagogique et contact(s)

Catherine Assous Tél : 03 23 39 14 72 mail : catherine.assous@culture.gouv.fr

• Visite gratuite : Uniquement lors des événements nationaux

https://www.coordonnees-gps.fr/communes/blerancourt/2093

Sources : ©Musée franco-américain du Château de Blérancourt

With its original displays, this museum was set up by its founder to recognise those who took part in the battles waged in the Norman bocage in the summer of 1944.

Through eight museum sections and a sound and light show, the guided tour introduces visitors to the astonishing adventures of the brave men who fought in the bocage.

Through fascinating research, the men, who are a living testament to the battles fought and their often exceptional, always touching, destiny, were identified and invited to the museum.

They often visit the museum bringing with them souvenirs that resonate with the history of the place.

The Bocage Breakout Museum

5 rue du 19 Mars 1962 - 14350 Saint-Martin-des-Besaces

Tel/Fax: +33 (0)2 31 67 52 78
Only during the museum season.

Email: bluecoat@wanadoo.fr

The project for a tower 300 metres tall was instigated during preparations for the World Exhibition of 1889. The two principal engineers from the Eiffel company, Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, had the idea in June 1884 for a very tall tower, designed like a large pylon consisting of four lattice-work girders, outspread at the base and coming together at the top, linked together by metal girders placed at regular intervals. On the 18th September 1884 Gustave Eiffel was granted a licence "new authorisation for the construction of metal structures and pylons over 300 metres tall". The curvature of the uprights was determined mathematically in order to provide the best possible resistance to the effects of wind. Erection of the supports began on the 1st July 1887, to be completed twenty-one months later. All the components were prepared at the factory in Levallois-Perret in the Paris suburbs, the head office of the Eiffel company: between 150 and 300 workers were involved in its assembly. The Tower was erected with the aid of wooden scaffolds and small steam driven cranes attached to the Tower itself. The assembly of the first level was carried out using twelve temporary wooden scaffolds 30 metres high and then four large 45 metre scaffolds. Started in January 1887, the project was completed on 31st March 1889. Gustave Eiffel was decorated with the Legion of Honour on the platform at the top.

A showcase for French industrial dynamism at the 1889 World Exhibition, the Tower would see more than two million visitors pass by during the event. Gustave Eiffel saved his work from demolition by promoting research into radio transmissions and suggesting that his tower could be used as an enormous radio mast. After the first radio signals were broadcast by Eugène Ducretet towards the Panthéon in 1898, Eiffel approached the military authorities in 1901 with a view to making the Tower into a long-distance radio antenna. In 1903 a radio connection was made with the military bases around Paris, and then a year later with the East of France. A permanent radio station was installed in the Tower in 1906, thus ensuring its continuing survival. During the Great War, the Tower provided many services by listening to enemy transmissions, which gave it the nickname "the big ear". It is thanks to the Tower that Joffre would be informed of the advance of von Klück's troops and decide to requisition all the taxis in Paris to send soldiers to the Marne. It was responsible, amongst other things, for the arrest of Mata Hari because, once again, the Eiffel Tower had kept an ear out and deciphered the spy's messages. In 1921 the first public radio broadcast in Europe would be transmitted from its aerials. The first television trials from the Tower date from 1925 and the first regular broadcasts from 1935. In May 1940, before the German troops arrived, a handful of patriots carried out acts of sabotage on the Tower, successfully enough to ensure that the lift did not work when Hitler came. A strategic place for commanding the city of Paris, the Tower was closed to the public between 1940 and 1945; it would not reopen until June 1946. Radio broadcasts were made from the centre at Allouis under the control of the occupying authorities, who took control of Radio-Paris. The top of the tower has been modified over the course of the years in order to accommodate ever more antennae. Today it accommodates several dozen antennae of all kinds, including a television mast that is 324 metres tall.

L’Airborne Museum est situé au cœur de Sainte-Mère-Eglise, face au clocher sur lequel le parachutiste John Steele est resté suspendu. A travers une muséographie spectaculaire et réaliste, l’Airborne Museum vous fera vivre le Débarquement aux côtés des parachutistes Américains des 82ème et 101ème Airborne. De la préparation du Jour-J en Angleterre, jusqu’aux combats qui menèrent à la Liberté, vous accompagnerez les troupes aéroportées dans leur chemin vers la Victoire. Découvrez une exceptionnelle collection d’objets historiques, un authentique planeur et un avion C-47 ayant participé aux opérations du Jour-J.

Une extension majeure : Opération Neptune et le Centre de conférence Ronald Reagan.

Dans le bâtiment "Opération Neptune" préparez-vous à vivre les parachutages du 6 juin 1944 ! Embarquez de nuit dans un véritable avion C-47 en Angleterre, puis atterrissez sur la place de Sainte-Mère-Eglise au milieu des combats et prenez part aux opérations qui suivirent !

A  partir de Mai, au sein du centre de conférence Ronald Reagan, découvrez une exposition inédite : « La bataille des Ardennes, Bastogne, hiver 1944 » ainsi que dans le cinéma un film de 20 minutes qui retrace avec émotion la vie sous l’occupation allemande puis la libération de Sainte-Mère-Église et du Cotentin.

►Exposition : 01>09 Juin 2019

Les + :

• Airborne Reality (depuis avril 2016): Munis de votre Smartphone ou votre tablette, téléchargez gratuitement l’application du musée et créez votre propre visite guidée en fonction de vos centres d’intérêt et de votre temps de visite !

Grâce à la réalité augmentée, soyez les témoins privilégiés du Débarquement et des parachutages sur Sainte-Mère-Eglise!

Téléchargement gratuit au musée, depuis le site web www.airborne-museum.org ou via Google Play et l’App Store. Application en français et anglais, puis, dans les mois à venir, en néerlandais.

• Exposition (à partir de juillet 2016): La bataille des Ardennes, Bastogne, hiver 1944. A travers cette exposition, revivez les évènements de cette bataille.

Le 16 Décembre 1944, Hitler lance une offensive de grande envergure à travers les Ardennes belges pour reconquérir le port d’Anvers et repousser les forces alliées.  Ces dernières sont prises par surprise du fait de la soudaineté et de la rapidité de l’attaque. En urgence, le Général Eisenhower décide d’envoyer en renfort des unités qu’il tient en réserve en France. La bataille des Ardennes a été plus qu’éprouvante et meurtrière pour les forces alliées qui devaient faire face à un hiver très rigoureux et un manque criant de ravitaillement en nourriture et en armes. L’armée allemande ne sera mise en échec qu’après l’apparition d’une accalmie salutaire permettant le ravitaillement des troupes au sol et facilitant l’arrivée de l’armée du Général Patton. La bataille des Ardennes ne prendra fin que fin janvier 1945.

Cette exposition inédite mettra également en lumière la voie de la liberté partant de Sainte-Mère-Eglise et arrivant à Bastogne ainsi que le rôle de l’armée Patton au sein de la bataille des Ardennes.

Guides de visite sous forme de livrets-jeux disponibles de 6 à 15 ans, téléchargement gratuit sur www.airborne-museum.org ou achat sur place +1€/enfant

Sources : ©Airborne Museum

Le 30 septembre 1945, « L’Amicale Des Anciens Internés Politiques de Châteaubriant-Voves » est créée. Dès lors, cette Association a pour but de maintenir le souvenir de ces hommes, objectif intégré dans la démarche du tourisme de mémoire.

Cette ambition passe par l’entretien du mémorial national érigé à Châteaubriant et par l’aménagement de la Carrière des fusillés. Le site fut classé en 1993.

Le monument inauguré le 22 octobre 1950 fut réalisé par Antoine ROHAL, sculpteur.
Depuis 1951, les alvéoles devant le monument contiennent un peu de terre des hauts lieux de la Résistance. Tout autour de la carriére sont installées en 1986 les stéles portant photographie et les indications personnelles de chaque fusillé.

Elle passe également par l’organisation de commémorations et de conférences. Actuellement, le titre est « Amicale de Châteaubriant-Voves-Rouillé-Aincourt ».

Pour transmettre cette histoire au public, le Musée de la Résistance à Châteaubriant,implanté dans la ferme qui jouxtait la carrière où ont été fusillés 27 hommes dont Guy Môquet, est inauguré en 2001 par l’Amicale. En 2007, l’Amicale délègue la gestion et l’animation du Musée à l’« Association des Amis du Musée de la Résistance de Châteaubriant ». Des expositions permettent de mieux comprendre la vie des internés et la Résistance dans le pays de Châteaubriant. Chaque année, une exposition en lien avec le thème du Concours National de la résistance et de la Déportation.

L’Office de Tourisme Intercommunal du Castelbriantais propose des visites guidées payantes de la Carrière et du Musée. Le Musée peut également être visité de manière libre et gratuite. Des documents sont mis à la disposition du public.

Sources : ©Musée de la Résistance à Châteaubriant