D-Day: Commonwealth Sectors

7. Ranville War Cemetery

Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandie

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The peaceful surroundings of the cemetery and churchyard at Ranville hold the remains of the soldiers killed during the D-Day Landings. Many are from the 6th Airborne who lost their lives in the fields of the surrounding countryside whilst taking or defending the bridges across the Caen Canal and the River Orne. The dead were also relocated here from battlefield graves at Amfreville, Colleville-sur-Orne, Houlgate, Colombelles and Villers-sur-Mer. The cemetery cares for the graves of 2,151 British, 76 Canadians, Five French and 322 Germans. There are also the remains of a Belgian, Pole, a New Zealander and an Australian. Buried here are brothers, Maurice and Phillippe Rousseau fighting with the 1st Canadian Paratroopers, the war poet Major W.J.F. Jarmain, 19 year old, E.S Corteil of the 9th Parachute Battalion, along with his dog and the 13th Parachute Battalion's R.J. Johns, at 16, the youngest paratrooper to die during the war.