Frozen in time: Shelters reveal WWII nightmare

AP via SFGate ^ | 11/27/8 | JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer

[SmithL]

CAEN, France (AP) -- The memories are 64 years old but retold with the clarity of yesterday: a young boy lowered by rope into a deep dark cave, watching the sky above shrink to a small and distant patch of blue.

That hole was home for a month for Gerard Mangnan, his family and dozens of others. And it likely saved their lives. While they huddled underground, Allied and Nazi troops above were waging one of the toughest battles of the D-Day invasion.

Now, generations later, the story of how caves and quarries became bomb shelters during the 1944 battle for the Normandy city of Caen is being brought alive by an amateur archaeologist, his photographer colleague, and the memories of survivors like Mangnan.

Most remarkably, the cave enthusiasts — Laurent Dujardin and Damien Butaeye — have rediscovered quarries that had lain largely undisturbed since the war, mysterious and eerie worlds frozen in time.

A shoe. A rusty bike. A child's coloring book. Jewelry. Cough mixture bottles. A box of Ridgways Finest Darjeeling Tea ("Grown at the altitude of 3,000 feet," says the still visible lettering).

Souvenir hunters with metal detectors have long picked over Normandy's battlegrounds, but underground, in these virtual time capsules, "You have the feeling that people were still there 24 hours beforehand and, most important, it has never been manipulated, picked up, moved," historian Stephane Simonnet, of Caen's war museum, ...

It sent shivers down the spine, and not just because of the cold and damp. In a site so well preserved it was easy to imagine the hacking coughs of people packed together, children wailing, and old men groaning, the stink and discomfort, everyone wondering whether the relentless Allied bombing would bring down the caverns and bury them alive.

[SmithL]

It's not all terror and politics. Here's a little history for a Thanksgiving read.

[SmithL]

fyi

[robomatik]

slideshow of the cave(s) at top of page.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanksgiving in wartime: Vets’ stories
Valley Press | Thursday, November 27, 2008. | JAMES RUFUS KOREN
Posted on 11/27/2008 11:27:57 AM PST by BenLurkin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2139268/posts

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·