Samuel Walls (University of Exeter, UK)

The South Hams, Devon, like a number of other areas in Britain in World War Two was occupied by military forces, with a large proportion of the local population fully evacuated from part of the area. The occupation lasted about nine months, during which time the evacuated areas landscape had been completely altered, through the construction of bunkers and defences to replicate the Normandy coast, and had then been even more dramatically altered by extensive live firing, which had littered the fields with craters and unexploded ordnance, destroying or damaging a large number of the trees, homes and public buildings in the area. The inhabitants returned to an unfamiliar landscape, which they set about repairing, rebuilding and re-familiarising. They also began to commemorate their evacuation and the D-Day landings, largely through informal public methods, such as the renaming of places and the retention of pictures and souvenirs in the local pubs.
This paper deals with the commemoration of the military occupation of foreign (yet friendly) troops. It focuses upon those aspects of the occupation and evacuation which were commemorated, and of the many other aspects which have been ignored or downplayed through this commemoration.