In this episode of World War S.H.E., host Laura Bailey and co-host Angélica Cordero are joined by Pierre-Samuel Natanson, an expert guide and WWII historian from Normandy, France. Pierre shares his deep-rooted passion for WWII history, inspired by stories from his grandparents. He delves into his journey from a childhood fascination to becoming a knowledgeable guide, leading tours in Normandy. Pierre discusses the local and educational perspective on WWII in France, the significance of anniversaries, and his mixed feelings about large commemorative events and reenactments. He also highlights the continued impact of WWII on Normandy's landscape and culture, and the enduring importance of remembering the events of the war.
This episode was recorded June 14, 2024. Transcript included below.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Angélica Cordero: Hi, and welcome to World War S.H.E., a podcast that shares the human experiences and the forgotten aspects of World War II that rocked the world then and echo today. I'm Angélica Cordero and I'm here today with Laura Bailey and a fun, exciting guest. Laura, I want to tell us a little bit about him.
[00:00:22] Laura Bailey: Absolutely. Today we have the pleasure and honor of having Pierre-Samuel Natanson from Normandy, France as our guest. Just to tell you a little bit about him, he was born in Cherbourg, Normandy. He grew up in the area and he and his family nurtured a passion for World War II history through the stories of his grandparents throughout Europe. Surrounding the Second World War as a child, he used to visit the sites of the Battle of Normandy, and his passion for the history continued to grow. He went on to study military history at King's College in London and Caen University, and then he started leading tours for the Caen Memorial Museum in 2012.
After that, he worked for a small guiding company where he gained more experience. And during these fruitful years, he came to complete his knowledge of both the history and the geography of Normandy. I can speak from experience that he offers a very rich, enlightening, and friendly experience through one of the hardest battles ever fought in human history as I was one of his visitors in September of 2019.
In 2017, he did create his own business called Normandy at War Tours after several years of gaining experience among the Normandy battlefields so that he could offer unique experience to anyone that. came across to France to find out more about their heritage or more about that history. It's exciting. to say that he started a partnership in 2014 with the National World War II Museum in New Orleans And continues to do so to this day. He's worked in collaboration with a number of leading historians. and scholars like Alexander Ritchie, James Holland, Alex Kershaw, Craig Simons, Michael Nyberg, and one of mine and Angelica's absolute favorites, Robert Citino. Pierre-Samuel, thank you for being with us today.
[00:02:16] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Great to be with you.
[00:02:18] Laura Bailey: Thank you. Just to jump in and get started. You mentioned in your bio that you have early childhood memories from your grandparents. Can you share with us? Perhaps one of your favorites or one of the most memorable? Okay.
[00:02:39] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: So, I had one grandmother living in Normandy and our immediate family suffered injury or death during the battle. But her brother actually was on the morning of D-Day in a small village called Fréville. It's a tiny little hamlet. It's about, it's basically a church with five houses surrounding it. And my great grandfather thought it was a very safe place to put his family.
And my great grandfather was working in the shipyards in Cherbourg and had to continue to work through through the occupation repairing. Very inefficiently, I should say repairing German U-boats and he had to stay in Cherbourg, to put his family um, to safety and through family relations put them in this tiny little hamlet called Fréville, where he was absolutely certain that nothing was going to happen.
Little did he know though, that Fréville is about a mile and a half North of La Fiere Bridge, where 82nd Airborne jumped on the morning of D-Day. So my great grandfather, my great uncle, I'm sorry. Remembered vividly the arrival of of American paratroopers on the morning of D-Day and, around sort of family dinners would often tell that story of the arrival of the Americans and then encountering American soldiers from talking to these guys experiencing the liberation, experiencing the the arrival of American supplies. He hadn't really eaten chocolate for four years by the time D-Day happened.
So, this was all sort of, I don't know how to explain this, but growing up, I was hearing all of these stories from my grandmother, from my great uncle. I think I didn't have a choice but to have an interest in that story.
[00:04:16] Laura Bailey: So, as you continue to grow in your educational system, was World War II history taught significantly throughout or was it just a course that you took along the way?
[00:04:28] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Now, World War II history is a very important part of the history curriculum in France. Going through school in France, you're gonna study history, you're gonna study World War II in progressively more details in primary school, middle school, and then high school. Now the focus in French schools is on the sort of the military aspect of World War II or the military aspects of World War II are taught in so far as they are necessary to understand the, understand the rest of the of World War II history. There's really two really important themes in the way that World War II history is taught in France and that is the occupation of France, the Vichy regime, the role of both resistance and collaboration in France, extremely, complicated subject. And of course, the Holocaust is the second one. And especially both the fate of Jews in France and the role that the Vichy regime played in the Holocaust.
So that's, going through schools in France and going through this French school system, you're going to learn a lot about World War II history. I already had the virus, so to speak. That didn't necessarily come through school, but that was very important nonetheless.
[00:05:43] Laura Bailey: As you came of age and you became a guide what made you want to teach the history
[00:05:49] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: I wouldn't say I wanted to teach you history. In fact, I think I became a guide so as not to become a teacher. I never planned on doing this and it just happened. I started working for the Memorial Museum as a sort of part time job while finishing my master's degree and I don't think you could get paid to do that sort of thing. And my plan was to go into academia possibly get, try to get a job teaching history at university. And then I realized actually that it's way more fun to be out and about on the beaches and in the countryside and talk about this history to people that want to listen. To be honest, I still can't quite believe my luck. And, I still have to pinch myself to realize now that making a living, driving around beaches and talking about World War II history. It's pretty amazing.
[00:06:44] Angélica Cordero: Do you find, and I don't know how much you are familiar with the curriculum of World War II's history here in the United States, but I'm just curious if you have made any or drawn any conclusions about the differences between how we study it versus how it's being studied in France?
[00:07:03] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: I can't really comment on that. I meet people with very different levels of knowledge about World War II history, or have a certain interest, otherwise they wouldn't be coming to Normandy. I am actually quite interested. I'm quite struck actually by the level of interest of younger generations. I get more and more families that come to visit the area with kids or teenagers that are very interested. And this is, it's not just the cliche of the boys fascinated by Tiger Tanks and it's all through, genders and age younger generation with both knowledge and interest in World War II history. So, I don't really know how this is taught in American school for, but from, for the segment of the American population that I see here in Normandy and, keeping in mind that this is a very limited segment, I am very impressed actually with the, with with both the knowledge and the interest.
[00:07:59] Angélica Cordero: That's really cool. I think when you don't, work in the kind of environment that you work in and or even in academia itself, it's easy to think that young kids don't really care about this history.
[00:08:13] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Yeah, and there's another, see I can interrupt for a second, I think there's also an element that I feel like I'm a bit of a weirdo in the sense that I always had an interest in history, uh, but I always felt like interest in history should come with age, should come with a sense of your own history. So, I'm not worried if kids are not interested in history. At one point they will and maybe that's just me being overly optimistic, but the, yeah.
[00:08:39] Laura Bailey: I find it very encouraging To hear you say that the younger generations are coming to Normandy. Are you finding that they're from a particular region of the world or are they, is it truly a global audience that's coming to France?
[00:08:52] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Couple of ways to answer this. First of all for my business, for what I do, about 90 percent of my clientele are Americans. So I can, as for the sort of the details of why they come, et cetera, I can really only talk about Americans. Now, looking at just visitors coming to Normandy, they're not quite from all over the world. They're mostly Europeans, mostly North Americans people from North America. It's interesting that, you know, in the sort of global tourism industry in France there's a huge market for Asians. which come in certain areas of Normandy that don't come to the beaches. So, it's not quite a global it's not quite a global interest. You don't see people from exactly all over the world.
[00:09:41] Laura Bailey: If as a guide I'm certain that you get asked the same questions all the time. I have two questions that really follow that. What do you do to keep it interesting? And what is your favorite moment, favorite surprise from one of your tourists?
[00:09:57] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: There's plenty actually. I can't quite, don't know what to…I mean, I think the most powerful moments as a guide I've ever experienced is bringing people; it either is meeting veterans or it's bringing people to the place where their relatives fought fought during the battle. So, yeah, especially when I've had tours where I brought people to to a place where their relative died, actually, and that's always extremely powerful especially when you can find out the details of how it happened bringing, yeah, bringing people to the graves of their relatives. that has to be the most powerful moments.
[00:10:38] Laura Bailey: When when we traveled and you were our guide in September of 2019, we did a tour with the World War II Museum in New Orleans. And my brother and I were the only two in the group. That had a relative that had been in France and just Angélica, just to share with you and our listeners how amazing Pierre Samuel is and how full his heart is for this history. I had shared with him that my grandfather came ashore on July 23rd of ‘44 as a replacement. And he would go on to serve with the 90th Infantry Division. So, when we went to the Normandy American Cemetery, he had asked us, would we do the honors of placing a wreath? And I absolutely was very honored to do that. And out of the nearly 10,000 that are laying in rest there, Pierre found one from the 90th Infantry Division that actually fell the day my grandfather came ashore. And as far as powerful memories up here, I've shared that many times ever since then with family members. And I can't thank you enough for that because that was just,
[00:11:50] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Yeah. I remember that very fondly.
[00:11:52] Laura Bailey: It was wonderful. But not to get too heavy, I will take it over to a he made me laugh very hard at Pointe du Hoc when we gathered there overlooking the English Channel. He took a moment as everybody was settling in and said, before anybody asked, no, this barbed wire was not here during the invasion. So apparently, apparently, that's a question he was asked frequently. And I just, I laughed. Just thank you for making that such a wonderful trip for us. And I'm sure the thousands, if not tens of thousands of people that have come to the area.
[00:12:29] Angélica Cordero: I don't want to like, take this back into it as a sad area, but only because we're talking to Pierre, am I interested. So, we've had a guest on previously who spoke of; or maybe it was Laura. We've done so many, I can't remember; that there are individuals in Europe, who actually, they inherit the taking care of certain American graves from during the war period. It's so unfortunate, I think, [that] here in the United States we don't have that kind of culture here necessarily surrounding anything like that. And I am just so curious to hear from your perspective. Like why, what's so important about that? Why is that something that is so generation over generation passed down? Obviously those are they're American graves. And I think it's wonderful that someone is taking care of it. It's just, it's so mesmerizing and awesome to hear that there, that this is a thing that over generations, families pass down. It's just wild and very cool.
[00:13:39] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: The what you're mentioning is it's something called the, it's an association called the Flowers of Memory that exists throughout Western Europe. It really started in Normandy, actually. It starts with the famous picture of Madame [Simone] Renaud the wife of the mayor of Sainte Mere Eglise, putting down flowers on the graves of Teddy Roosevelt on the grave of Teddy Roosevelt Jr. and it inspired people to do the same all around Normandy and has continued ever since. And so, in Normandy you can you can take it upon yourself through this association to regularly flower the grave of a soldier. I have friends that have been on the waiting list of the Flowers of Memories for almost 10 years. So, there's plenty more people willing to to do this than there actually are graves at the at the Norman American Cemetery. And now, why exactly that is, I can't really speak. It's not that I can't speak to that. I've never really thought about it.
It's something that's just DNA of the locals itself. It's it's this sort of eternal gratitude that you really experience here. And you, Laura, you were asking me about moments that really touched me as a guide. I think in addition to just what I was saying about showing people the place where the relatives fought or die, et cetera, it's something that touches me particularly is getting to showing Americans how this history is still alive here in Normandy. You were mentioning the 90th division. In a few weeks time, I'll be at the ceremony in a small village called Saint-Germain-sur-Sèves where the 90th division on the 20th of July suffered enormous casualties and my friend's uncle was killed in that place.
The village is going to rededicate the monument there and they're going to name a sort of a parking lot of the monument after my friend's uncle. And, this is a village of 150 people, way out of any of the tourist trail.
And this is some, every anniversary, there's a lot of focus on the big ceremonies, the international, the international ceremony or the world leaders et cetera. And this is important. But people maybe don't quite realize that this doesn't stop with the week of the anniversary. For example, this year, with the 80th anniversary of D-Day, there's going to be ceremonies all through the summer. Every town, every small village will hold very low key, very humble ceremonies on the day that the the town or the village was liberated. In the case of my first uncle, that's going to be on the 23rd of July. And that, that's really powerful actually, I find and really meaningful.
[00:16:15] Laura Bailey: So very much so. and you said the 23rd of July. That's the day my grandfather came ashore. Yeah.
[00:16:25] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: I forgot that. Well, yeah, the 19th division has a pretty, really sad story actually in Normandy. By the 20th of July, they've already suffered about 150 percent casualties. My friend's uncle was already a replacement at the end of June. He's in Normandy for less than a month, actually.
[00:16:46] Angélica Cordero: Dang.
[00:16:46] Laura Bailey: The 80th and I just from the United States perspective, watching the coverage on the news of all the happenings in the Normandy along the beaches, et cetera. It appeared to be quite the event. Lot going on, I'm sure several days of which how was it for you as a guide to be a part of that?
[00:17:08] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: As I was saying just before we started recording I haven't quite recovered yet from last week. And, I haven't put my thoughts quite so quite in order yet, but it was pretty amazing. But to the point where it was leaning towards insanity.
They were, they're trying to do estimates of the number of people that visited the area. And it looks like there were more than 2 million people in that week. Okay, this means the area tripled in population that week. So yeah, it was just getting around was a problem actually, without even talking about questions of security around heads of states and stuff like that.
[00:17:50] Angélica Cordero: How big is Normandy itself from a population standpoint?
[00:17:54] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: In low Normandy itself, it's just shy of a million people. In low Normandy, but we're talking about 2 million people that very much focused on the area with the landing took place. So that's sort of 55 miles of coastline, pushing inland, really just a few miles. You don't have to go that far inland to get away from the sort of from the major sites and and and the major events. So, it's 2 million people. Very heavily concentrated in certain areas, around Omaha, around St. Maidley's in the Anglo Canadian, in the Anglo Canadian sectors, around Pegasus Bridge et cetera. So pretty crazy. Just people from all over Europe coming down lots and lots of reenactors which, yeah, we can come back to later, historic vehicles, I had a guest last week that told me, wow, everybody in Normandy seems to be owning a Willys Jeep. And my answer was no, but everybody in Europe that owns a Willys Jeep was in Normandy last week.
[00:18:52] Laura Bailey: [00:19:00] Okay.
[00:19:00] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: There's actually a lot of Jeeps around, around Europe. Yeah, no, it was pretty crazy, actually. I was a little bit removed from most of the really intense part because I worked through the week with the National World WWII Museum and anniversary cruise. So, we were staying in in Honfleur and Cherbourg. So, that's already a little bit outside of the area that focus the attention of most people. But of course we were touring and moving, going to going to the beaches, to the major sites.
And it was, I had a lot of fun guiding. I met a lot of great people. I did meet a few veterans, of course, then. They are now gentlemen and they're mostly over a hundred. It's very different than from when I started and, or when I was a kid meeting veterans. I don't know if that shows, but I do have mixed feelings about big anniversaries. They are great events. It's a moment where I get a lot of my friends come to Normandy and I see a lot of people that I don't get to see very often, but it's also, I also feel sometimes that it's not necessarily doing a service to the history to focus so much attention to in such a short amount of time.
If you want to really understand what happened here in June of 1944 and through the summer 1944, don't come on a big anniversary. That's what I'm trying to say.
[00:20:28] Angélica Cordero: But largely because there's two million people within a 55 mile radius, right?
[00:20:34] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Exactly. Exactly. It's yeah it's just, there always was, actually in the commemorations of D-Day there always was a quite a festive element. It's a celebration of recovered freedom and maybe they're pushing that festive element a little bit too far. But again that's, again, that's my personal personal feelings about it.
[00:21:00] Laura Bailey: I had considered traveling to Normandy for the anniversary, but I spoke with you and I spoke with another gentleman in Normandy. And based on The congestion and the difficulty moving around. I made the decision not to, and I instead went to Bedford, Virginia and was present at their memorial ceremonies. I thought that was crowded. It was between four and 8, 000 people. So that was a small crowd considering what you had to deal with, but it was,
[00:21:30] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: It's already quite a big ceremony.
[00:21:32] Laura Bailey: Yes, it was, especially for such a very small town. And it, I was very pleased by the fact that there were dignitaries from the allied nations there. And it was just a very touching, respectful tribute. Most people don't know about the significance of Bedford, Virginia, but that is where the National D-Day Memorial is, and I encourage anyone and everyone to go because it's it's the next best thing to actually going to Normandy.
[00:22:01] Laura Bailey: I was just going to ask one more question. I know you can't possibly know the exact answer to this, but how many veterans of the war were and you were estimated to have been there last week?
[00:22:13] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: So, they were at the ceremony on the morning of, on the, around midday on the 6th, there were around 190 veterans. American veterans. There aren't clear estimates of the number of British or Canadian veterans because they tend to come through more sort of low key organizations or by their own means, actually, with their family but there were a fair number of veterans actually around.
That's actually one of the, that's actually, and I don't want to be too negative, but again, I do have mixed feelings about these events and that's actually one of the big problems I had with the events last week is the way veterans, I don't know how to explain this, but American veterans come through a number of organizations. And it felt like they were being paraded. It didn't feel like they had the opportunity to engage with locals. They had the opportunity to go and see the places they wanted to see the places where they thought, and again, this is just my own sort of perspective on it from my sort of limited knowledge of how these, of some of these organization worked. It's a little, it's the presence of these veterans is sometimes a little bit contrasted in terms of what it represents. I think.
[00:23:30] Angélica Cordero: How would you want to see it have been celebrated?
[00:23:35] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: I'm not in a position to have an opinion on that, and everybody celebrates in different ways. There's two, I think there's two fundamental, in my opinion, there should be two fundamental goals to these commemorations. The first is that while there are still a few veterans around, showing them and first of all expressing our gratitude and showing them that we, the people of Normandy and France, remember what they did for us and intend to continue to remember this after they're gone. I'm not entirely sure we achieved that and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't, I'm not entirely sure we achieved that. The second element is, remembering is more general. It's remembering this history. Remembering why we had to fight, why we had to fight World War II. And having an understanding of what the events of World War II can teach us of the world today. And what it means and how it helps us think about the about the world today. And again, I don't think we've achieved that much either. These I know I'm going to sound really negative, but it just felt like a big party for drunk Belgium marine actors, if I want to be brutally honest. Okay.
[00:24:50] Angélica Cordero: I mean, that sounds like a party.
[00:24:52] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Yeah it is a party, but just do it somewhere else at another time. That's what I'm saying.
[00:24:59] Angélica Cordero: Almost like you are hoping that there was more reverence for everything. It's what it sounds like what you’re basically getting at.
[00:25:04] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And let me be brutally honest about what I think. And you can cut this out later if you want, but I and tired of reenactors. I just don't get the point. I don't understand it. And it's become way too much about reenacting in Normandy.
I was just to give you an example, planning the tour with the National World War II Museum, we were very worried about touring on June the 5th, because that's the day we were supposed to be going to Omaha. And we were worried about just the sheer number of people going to the um, being there and, you know, not being able to drive around, get our guests to access the beach. And the difficulty this year is that the international ceremony was on Omaha, was in the middle around was in Mer. So, there were already some of the roads that were closed and we were worried about that the other exits, the other routes down onto the beach would be closed as well. And it actually turned out when we showed up that, the two, we had problems going through. Going around the reenactors camp at Mer on the western end and going around the reenactors camp, at Colleville-sur-Mer on the eastern end of Omaha. The traffic was crazy. It took us 30 minutes or more sometimes to drive past these areas, but once we were on the beach, there was nobody.
There wasn't nobody. There weren't that many people we could do a regular tour of Omaha Beach. And it really struck me as this is, you guys are in the wrong place. You want to, why do you care about people dressing up? When you can be on this beach by these monuments and try to understand and see what happened here 80 years ago. Yeah, it's just, it feels it felt like Comic Con for reenactors.
[00:27:00] Laura Bailey: I could see that.
[00:27:02] Angélica Cordero: Yeah. One of the things that both Laura and I have talked about independently and also took a class on specifically was how we memorialize things and just the different manners in which people think that they're paying reverence to a particular event in history and a group of people and so forth. And so it's interesting to hear your perspective on that about reenactors because I don't know that, I think a lot of people possibly think maybe by being there while it's being reenacted that it's as close to the reality of the situation that would have happened, right? And so they, maybe they want to have this interactive, immersive experience. And but it's, it is always really interesting because everybody, I don't want to say memorizes. Everybody remembers in different ways.
[00:27:59] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: And absolutely, and, I agree with that and there is, and don't get me wrong, there is a place for reenactment, and there's things to learn from that, and there's a couple of really good reenactors camps around Normandy every year, but where the rules are very strict, both in terms of the quality of the reenactment, and in terms of the fact that at the moment these guys get outta the camps, they go back to they go back to civilian clothes. You can't see me. But I'm doing air quotes when I say “civilian clothes.” “Civilian clothes.” The problem is just, it's that most of these guys are really bad at it. You've never seen a 60 year old sergeant in a hunt for a stable with a beer belly. That's just the truth. It's playing dress up. It's not memorializing. It's playing dress up.
[00:28:47] Angélica Cordero: I actually want to shift to a different subject matter because I know that in your bio that it said that you had a really good knowledge of the geography of Normandy and I would love to know, and this is if you do know this, exactly how the beach landings, and everything that happened thereafter, what kind of impact it had on France in that area for the longterm.
[00:29:13] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: What do you mean?
[00:29:15] Angélica Cordero: Did it change any of the agriculture? Did it change any of the urban makeup?
[00:29:21] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: So many different ways to answer that question actually. The urban makeup, absolutely. Every large town and city in Normandy was partially or completely destroyed during the battle, with the exception of with the exception of Bayeux. And that fundamentally changed the, and these towns and cities had to be rebuilt through the 50s and 60s with, and created a sort of, even in an architectural school actually, what we call in France reconstruction architecture. Very often, interestingly, these towns and cities were rebuilt according to pre war plans. Actually, they were pre war modern, modernization plans. There's a famous saying in Normandy that the allies damaged cities in Normandy, but it's the post war architects that destroyed them. So yeah. So if it comes to sort of urban development, it completely changed things. It hasn't fundamentally changed the sort of landscapes and the agriculture, et cetera.
Actually one thing that, yeah, one thing that it's, this is pretty anecdotal, but Normandy nowadays is very famous for its oysters and mussels. And this is actually linked to World War II. Historically, Normandy was not an oyster producing region in France. It was more in the on the western coast of France. It's when oysters started showing up on the on the wrecks of Allied ships and vehicles out in the water that the locals started to get the idea of actually farming oysters and mussels. So that's just an anecdote.
[00:30:50] Angélica Cordero: Those are like the little nuggets of things that I find to be really fascinating because I don't think people put two and two together about how, like what you're saying that they were on, they came with the boats. That's what you said, that they came with the boats that were coming.
[00:31:07] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: They didn't really come with, no, they didn't come with the boats. They showed up, and they used the, basically the wrecks that were left behind. They were natural reefs. It became natural reefs for oysters and mussels. Where they weren't there before.
[00:31:21] Angélica Cordero: Yeah. And wow. And so they created basically a habitat for it and then a whole new industry was birthed in Normandy is what you're saying. That is just that it's I love the chain of events style thing of that and understanding that had, let's say World War II not happened, then that might not have been a thing that changed in Normandy. That's so interesting.
[00:31:43] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: So I'm just trying to think of other areas where it really fundamentally impacted Normandy. Now, the sense that tourism is a huge industry and tourism linked to World War II is a huge industry in Normandy now. Although that's not something that happened directly, immediately after the war. That's something that really comes out of the 1990s. But yeah, that's definitely some, Normandy would look very different and places along the coast would look very different if it wasn't for the events of 1944.
[00:32:16] Angélica Cordero: Awesome.
[00:32:16] Laura Bailey: A follow up to that, Pierre, I remember when we were with you, you shared and I would rather you tell the story, but how the locals continued to find ordinance that had not been set off during the war for years and years after. Can you speak on that?
[00:32:32] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: Yeah. Now, first of all, this is something that's not something that's new in France. So that's something that you know, it's something that started with World War I actually what the what people in the north and east of France called the Iron Harvest And that's still true today.
You still find stuff in Normandy The numbers always give is there on it's there's an estimate a bad that the allies were firing two tons of ordnance every minute of the battle of Normandy. At the same time, between 5 and 10 percent of shells and bombs in World War II are duds and don't explode.
Which means, this, and this is a huge oversimplification, but there's probably between 100 and 200 kilos of explosives, of unexploded ordnance left around Normandy every minute of the three months of the Battle of Normandy. So we're going to find stuff around here for a very long time. After the war, for about 10 years after the war on average, about 500 farmers were dying from unexploded ordnance in their fields actually.
So now, nowadays it's very rare that there are accidents, but there are accidents still. A few years ago actually, there was this story of a young couple that were walking along Omaha and the guy found a nice little pebble on the beach and a nice little red pebble that he wanted to keep, and took the pebble, put it in his pocket, and as a few minutes later, fire started in his pocket and the pebble literally burned a hole through his through his through his pocket. Turned out that pebble was actually phosphorus. That was on the beach, still in contact with water. It was not burning, but the moment the guy picked it up it started drying up and and started drying up and in contact with the air started burning again. that's still something it's going to continue here for a long time.
[00:34:15] Laura Bailey: In my mind, the effects of the war will continue forever. The veterans and those that lived it, will eventually die off, unfortunately, but it'll permanently be ingrained in our cultures until the end of time as far as my opinion is concerned.
[00:34:33] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: To go back to the previous question and link to that, something that will always stay are the cemeteries. So, you drive around Normandy, you're finding military cemeteries everywhere around. And that's always going to be there, and that's part of the landscape here of Normandy.
[00:34:53] Laura Bailey: Pierre, we're coming up on an hour and I do appreciate your time, especially at the late hour it is in France. But do you have any comments that you typically share with your tours when you're parting? Just something that will stay with them or something that you would like them to remember as you send them on their way.
[00:35:26] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: I try not to. I think the events of World War II mostly speak for themselves. There’s a few things, not necessarily at the end of the tour, but there's a few things, that I try to emphasize throughout my tour, things that think are especially useful to remember in today's world the international aspect of the allied efforts, the cooperation aspect I think is important. It's really important to remember. We tend to have a very nationalized view of the events of D-Day and World War II in general. Which is really not how D-Day was planned and how it was executed. D-Day is the story of, as Eisenhower put it, liberty loving people pulling together in one direction and achieving something great.
And, if we the sort of, “the Americans did that, the Brits did that” sort of debate is I think especially counterproductive, and very contrary to how the history actually happened. But that's not necessarily something that I try to impart at the end of the talk.
I'm not one for sort of big lessons, and this is what you need to remember. I think people can, I'm just giving the information for people to make their own judgments. That's that, at least that's what I try to do.
[00:36:34] Laura Bailey: And you do it very effectively and very well. And I thank you for that personally. Angelica, do you. have any closing questions?
[00:36:42] Angélica Cordero: No, I don't I'm just so grateful to have had you on it. Like Laura said, I know it's super late over there. And so we really appreciate the time that you've given us.
[00:36:52] Pierre-Samuel Natanson: It’s not that late, and you know, we're much further north than you guys are. So, it's still bright outside. It's 10pm, but that's the great thing about Normandy is that in June it's bright until 11 p. m. in June yeah yeah, no it's sorry, I'm losing my train of thought here, but no, it's really great to to talk to you.
[00:37:10] Laura Bailey: Very nice to speak with you as well. Thank you very much.
[00:37:14] Angélica Cordero: We're so glad to have had Pierre join us today. Learn more about him and the Normandy at War Tours online at www.normandy-at-war-tours.com. And thanks to you, our listeners, for tuning in. Make sure to connect with us. Follow us on Instagram (at) world where she. Subscribe to our newsletter on Substack: world war she (dot) sub stack (dot) com. Have a topic you want us to get into? Shoot us an email. Our email address is worldwarshepodcast (at) gmail.com. Until then, we’ll see you when we get our next set of orders. Over and out.
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