Posted on 06/12/2008 3:48:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Historic ‘name trees’ bore thousands of carvings
The names “Thomas and Dorothy” were carved in the bark of one trunk. Another said “Bob and Carma”. Other trees were marked with soldiers’ home states - Iowa, Maine or Alabama - and several bore hearts and the names or initials of a wife or girlfriend.
The beech trees of Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair forest bore a poignant testimony to the D-Day landings for more than six decades. Thousands of American soldiers stationed there after the liberation of Normandy spent their spare hours with a knife or bayonet creating a lasting reminder of their presence.
Although the trees grew and the graffiti swelled and twisted, this most peculiar memory of one of the 20th century’s defining moments remained visible - until now. Amid bureaucratic indifference and a dispute between officials and the forest owner, most of the trees have been felled, chopped up and turned into paper.
Claude Quétel, a French historian and Second World War specialist, was horrified when he discovered what he called a catastrophe and a shameless act. “It is a typically French failing to wipe out the traces of the past,” he told The Times. “I am indignant.”
Locals are calling for the few “name trees” that still stand to be classified as historic monuments and saved from the same fate. “It should have been done a long time ago,” said Nicolas Navarro, the curator of a Second World War museum in the grounds of his family’s 13th-century Château du Taillis near by. “It’s sad and pathetic that it wasn’t.”
The trees surrounded land in the heart of Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair forest, near Rouen in Normandy, which was once home to a US army camp named after the Twenty Grand brand of cigarettes. It was one of nine cigarette camps - along with Pall Mall, Old Gold, Philip Morris, Chesterfield, Lucky Strike, Home Run, Wings and Herbert Tareyton - used by troops needing treatment or waiting to be sent elsewhere. They were places of calm between the D-Day landings and the Ardennes, the Siegfried Line or the Pacific.
Camp Twenty Grand, set up in September 1944 and closed in February 1946, had tents for 20,000 US soldiers as well as a few hundred German prisoners. Some of the Americans stayed weeks, others months, bringing chocolate, fruit and parties to a French population emerging from the rigour of Nazi occupation.
Mr Navarro’s museum contains a collection of the objects which caused amazement among the Normans: Craig Martin toothpaste, Nescafé, Coca-Cola bottles and a Durex. The soldiers left broken hearts, peach stones - which were planted to give the region its first peach trees - and their graffiti.
“Basically, they spent their time carving their names into the trees with knives and bayonets,” Mr Navarro said. “It became a real fad at Twenty Grand because thousands did it.”
He described the beech trees as one of the finest Second World War souvenirs left in Normandy. But Les Arbres des Noms - most of which stood along a small, winding road in the middle of the forest - were deemed unsafe by local officials. They ordered Patrice Robin, 79, who owns the land, to prune branches overhanging the road. “I said no at first,” he said. “But they threatened to take action against me.”
It costs about €800 (£630) to prune a beech tree, but only about €200 to cut it down. Mr Robin chose the cheaper option. “It’s complete madness - but I couldn’t do anything else.”
Mr Navarro said that more than 150 trees were felled last year, a destruction that went unnoticed beyond the district for months. He is determined now to preserve the ones that remain.
I stopped reading there, in disbelief that a French person would say that. ;)
Sad. But, it’s their loss.
Typical of the French. Can’t wait for them to build condos on the war graves at Normandy.
In memory of this heinous act, I shall eliminate from the world six bottles of fine French appellation using a toilet. So there.
I imagine they made a few contributions to the local gene pool.
“I was with the Americans when they ‘blundered’ into Berlin in 1918.”
- Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains)speaking to Major Strasser in Casablanca.
We all owe a great debt to those men who carved their names on those trees.
10 years ago I was in France on my honeymoon with my bride and we visited some of her friends in Normandy. They took us to the farm of one of their friends that was used as a HQ just a few days after D Day. They housed German POWs in the barn which still had German and US soldier graffiti on the timbers.
What else would we expect. After all, it’s the surrender monkeys we’re talking about here.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Not enough, it would seem.
Beech tree has a typical lifespan of 150 to 200 years, though sometimes up to 300 years.
They were going to go some day.
American Graffiti
Someone, somewhere could have cut out the sections that had the names and preserved them, perhaps at the WWII memorial near New Orleans. What a kick for the kids of those veterans to be able to point to a name and say, "THAT's MY DAD!"
You can’t save everything.
But you still bought the wine first, right?
A most amazing thing just occurred. While I started reading this article I could hear ever so faintly the Star Spangled Banner. I even looked away from the screen, I could still her it. Coincidence?
If you had to avoid building on battlefield grave sites in France, you’d have only ten square meters of room somewhere near Bordeaux. France is an old country.
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