Some Gave All: Monument to returning partisans, France.

Some Gave All: Monument to returning partisans, France.:

Monument to returning partisans, France.

A French monument to six French partisans who returned by parachute and lost their lives on May 9, 1944.

I'm unfamiliar with this incident, but a large percentage of these operations were unsuccessful due to the penetration of the British SOE by the Germans. The SOE was only one of several British secret service organizations during the war and was not a full time professional one.  Following the war it investigated the penetration and somewhat, but not fully, determined what had occurred, although it also operated to cover up the event as well.

This monument indicates that the captured Frenchmen were deported to Germany where they must have been subsequently executed at some point.

Some Gave All: Belleau Wood, France

Some Gave All: Belleau Wood, France:

Belleau Wood, France

These are photographs of the American memorial at Belleau Wood, the site of the epic 1918 battle involving American ground troops for which the Marine Corps is particularly well remembered.  The photographs include the memorial chapel and cemetery, as well as scenes of the battlefield itself.

MKTH photographs

 Lt. J.G. Weeden E. Osborne won the posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions in trying to carry a wounded officer to safety.  Osborne was a dentist assigned to the Marine Corps.

During World War Two a battle was fought at the cemetery and this corner of the monument received a hit from a projectile fired from a tank.  Such projectiles are typically armored piercing, which explains the penetration, but which also explains shy the shell was not explosive.

The famous hunting lodge that was fought over in the Wood.