Did you ever hear of the Carquebut Cemetery?  No, but you almost did.  What we know today as the Blosville Cemetery was inadvertently misnamed. 

The fields seized for the cemetery were close to the village of Blosville and it was assumed that the properties were within that town's boundaries.   However, they were actually within the commune of Carquebut.  Their proximity to the village of Blosville had been misleading and hence the incorrect naming of the cemetery. 

Glider Zone
aircraft circle over what was to become the Blosville Cemetery

Cemetery layout
is easily discerned.  Note the buildings at lower right match to those in the GZ photo (above, left)
   The buildings were known as '"Les Forges" (millworks) and are mentioned in after battle reports as an objective to be captured, the junction is still referred to as '"Les Forges"'.
  
This photo looks towards the road junction where the "Forges" buildings were.  The cemetery field is to the right of the sign, and the cemetery monument flag is above the sign to the right of the metal post.

Completed Cemetery
is neat and orderly with wooden crosses marking each grave. Ultimately, each person buried here was transferred to the permanent facility at Laurent sur Mer or shipped home, depending on family wishes

Local Labor
was impressed to dig graves and to help bury the bodies of both American and German soldiers.
   They are seen here in Hiesville taking German bodies from the truck for processing.

Mr. de la Rue
(ca. October 2010) along  with his father was part of the burial labor force.  He was fifteen at the time.
   He has a letter written in pencil by an American General asking for French workers to help with the burial procedures.

Current Memorial
"Here, between June 1944 and 1948, were the graves of 6,000 American solders who died for the liberation of France"

Restored Field
hardly seems that it was once a battle site, landing zone or a cemetery.
Note that the farm buildings in this 2010 photo can be seen in the background of the "Early Arrivals" 1944 photo in the row above.

Aerial View
The cemetery site is marked by an arrow while the towns of Carquebut (left) and Blosville (right) are circled. 

The  A13 / N13 auto route was built post war to bypass the village and runs beside the original wartime cemetery.

Kenneth Lewis regularly attends an annual event in May when villagers from Carquebut perform a wreath laying ceremony at the monument to the 6.000 men (above).
   There is a British Lancaster crash site within the bounds of Carquebut commune.  Special honors are paid to the pilot, Flight Officer Robert J. Sarvis, who was an American volunteer in the RAF and flew with a British crew.  F/O Sarvis wore an American uniform after 1942 when the USAAF arrived in England, but the crew all wore RAF blue uniform. 
   On 25 July 44, the plane was returning from a bombing raid on Germany and was badly shot up.  Sarvis attempted to get to friendly territory in Normandy as he surmised they would not make it back to England.  However the plane took further damage from American anti-aircraft fire and he ordered the crew out and he went down with the plane.
   Lewis is organizing a visit on April 1, 2011 for a group of twenty-two members of the history department of Tennessee State University which Sarvis had attended prior to the war.  [See more of Kenneth's "Then and Now" comparisons]