By Commander Benoît Haberbusch

"“Let us be worthy of the courage of those who landed here.” The tribute paid by Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, on June 6, 2024, to the last Allied veterans gathered on Omaha Beach, will remain the defining image of this year's D-Day commemorations. The collection of testimonies from the last witnesses of the landing becomes all the more precious, as does the account of former gendarme Louis Renard on the liberation of Cherbourg. 

Despite a few memoirs and academic works on this “ultimate battle” of World War II, the actions of the gendarmes in Normandy remain largely unknown. What was the state of the Normandy gendarmerie on the eve of OperationOverlord? What was the frame of mind of the gendarmes in the early days of June 1944? What role did they play during the Battle of Normandy? (...)"

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