Second World War bomb craters and the archaeology of Allied air attacks in the forests of the Normandie-Maine National Park, NW France

Abstract

Well-preserved bomb craters in the forests of central Normandy, NW France, constitute archaeological legacies of combat inland from the D-Day beachheads that greatly extend the inventory of Second World War conflict landscapes in northwest Europe. Field survey and analysis of German and Allied documents demonstrates that bombscapes in the Forêt domaniale des Andaines and Forêt domaniale d'Ecouves reflect US Ninth Army Air Force attacks on a German fuel depot and radar installation, respectively, during June-August, 1944. One hundred and thirty-six craters are mapped, described and linked to specific air raids, bomb types and, for one raid on the 13th June, six specific participating aircraft and aircrews. These landscapes echo the impact of widespread tactical bombing against targets close to civilian population centers, and in some cases employing civilian and PoW labor. They are therefore well-placed to contribute to wider heritage narratives around the non-combatant experience of aerial warfare in WWII.