The Overlord planners had predicted that the liberation of Normandy would take three weeks. In the event, it took four times as long. The Allies encountered endless setbacks and suffered more than 200,000 casualties in battle, including 37,000 dead. In the course of the fighting, the Germans, for their part, lost a large proportion of their available forces in the West ‑ nearly 400,000 prisoners, wounded or dead, as well as most of their equipment and tanks. They kept up their resistance for three months, drawing on every last ounce of strength before totally collapsing. Consequently, the liberation of France was as swift and straightforward as that of Normandy had been long, arduous and costly. The Allies entered Paris on August 25^th and Patton reached the outskirts of Verdun on the 31^st.

     Nearly 20,000 civilians met with their deaths. Caen, Lisieux, Coutances, Saint-Lô, Vire and many other towns were reduced to rubble, while peaceful villages were razed to the ground. Economic activities suffered massive disruption, while artistic and cultural treasures were lost forever. Normandy would bear the scars left by the war for a very long time to come.

   Its martyrdom was the price that had to be paid for the freedom of the nation. Nobody should forget this today, just as nobody should forget that the sacrifice of a region and its inhabitants was matched by that of the young men from across the Atlantic or the Channel who now lie forever beneath the Norman soil they came to liberate.