In the attached set of pictures the title of each picture starts with the
following:
Cerm = the ceremony it self with the people that were
there.
Ceremony Pictures
Memor = the
memorial itself Cole air crew & Don C Cole is self
explanatory. Memorial
pictures
The "out" folder was the pictures I chose to send to any who
requested them. All of them came from
the 'raw'
photos. Misc Pics
For those
of you that want to know where this is, look at the western coast of France just
a little
inland and just south of the center of the country. It is in the
province (I think that is what they call
them) of Poitou-Charentes.
Click on the number 14 on the map link to bring up the province.
Saintes
is just SW of La Rochelle. Nieul Les Saintes is just NW of Saintes.
You can follow this URL and see
where it
is. Map
of France Nieul
Les Saintes
In the Nieul Les Saintes pictures you can see a picture
of the list of the mayors of the town from 1790
to present. We were there in
2000 and the current mayor, the woman in several of the pictures, was
only
the 18th mayor. The gentleman in the red coat in several of the pictures was the
history teacher
that put this memorial and ceremony all together. The lady in
the pictures with him was our interpreter
for the trip. Her husband
volunteered her for the job (hehe) without her knowledge. She had not
spoken
English in over five years and had to learn how all over again. She
did a top notch job. The Air Force
officer in the pictures was our liaison
officer at our French embassy office. He made all the arrangements
for our
stay in Paris, the train ride to and from Saintes, and the hotel we stayed at in
Nieul Les Saintes.
The evening before we went to the ceremony the mayors of
Nieul Les Saintes & Saintes and several
French dignitaries (have no idea
who they were) treated us to one of their fine dinners at a restaurant
in
Saintes. We sat down to eat just after 6:30PM and did not finish the last of the
8 courses until
after 11PM. To say the French are not in a rush to eat is a
Gross understatement. Between each course
there was lots of talk and wine
served, and with each many toasts of various degrees of thanks to
our
forefathers and the many who died freeing the French people.
Yes
those are the ancient Roman arches that are still standing in many of the towns.
The memorial
is about 5 miles outside Nieul Les Saintes and the woods you see
in a couple of the pictures is where
the plane crashed. That area of the
crash site is now a French historical site and can never be farmed
or
lumbered (much to the distress of the farmer who bought the adjoining land not
knowing it was
historical site). The picture cerm003 shows the front of the
crowd at the ceremony. They were actually
about 8-10 deep there (my estimate
is 350-400 people). That was most of the people of Nieul Les
Saintes and the
surrounding area. The pictures of the Saintes open market is where I lost Judy.
She
loved looking and wondering at all that was there and was amazed at how
much it was like our local
farmers market. Yes that is one of the local
French castles we saw as we toured the area. They are
working on trying to
repair the amphitheater to provide another tourist attraction for the
area.
Below is a link to the media coverage by the 3 local TV stations
when the Air Force notified them that
the recovered watch was to presented to
me at a public ceremony.
