Location 6 – Ranville Commonwealth Wargraves Commission Cemetery

As predicted by the planners before the operation began, the nature of their entry into Normandy and the difficult objectives assigned to them meant that the 6th Airborne Division suffered huge casualties. Time and again during their defence of the eastern flank of the invasion, until the German front finally collapsed in early August, they were attacked by numerically superior German forces leaving villages such as Ranville, Bréville and le Mesnil all but destroyed.

Out of the 12,000 men who constituted the 6th Airborne on 5th June 1944, a staggering 4,457 were casualties by the end of August when the Normandy campaign officially ended. 821 never came home.

The vast majority of these men are to be found at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Ranville amongst the 2,563 burials.