The story of this place
A D-Day objective meant to fall on the first day, Caen instead became the anvil of a two-month battle as British and Canadian forces ground against fierce German armoured defence. Allied bombing and artillery reduced much of the medieval city to rubble; by the time it was fully taken in mid-July 1944, an estimated two-thirds of Caen lay destroyed and thousands of civilians had died, many sheltering in the Abbaye aux Hommes founded by William the Conqueror. In 1988 the Mémorial de Caen opened on the site of a former German command bunker, telling the story of the 20th century's violence and the fragile search for peace.