British Normandy Memorial, WW2. The most achingly sad and beautiful place I have ever visited.

The way this monument has been constructed is really clever. As you approach the monument you naturally focus on the arch which is the centre point. Your initial thought is that there are literally thousands of names carved on it. It is only as you get closer you realise that all of those names are actually from only one day - D-Day, June 6, all of the other names of those who died in the Normandy campaign are inscribed on the pillars surrounding the monument. In actual fact, the pillars themselves are part of the monument. This gives a profound sense of the sacrifice and numbers of soldiers that died - and you must remember that this is a monument purely to British soldiers and there are literally thousands and thousands of names on it. As I walked around. I started counting the names of soldiers whose age was listed as 16, or under . I got to 9 and it became too much. There are probably many more but just seeing the names of those nine soldiers who didn’t even reach their 17th birth