Foucarville

Shortly after D-day the amount of German prisoners captured by the Allies was causing problems as many small camps were springing up around Normandy.
It was decided in order to save man power in guarding the Germans that larger camps would be formed. It was to be known as "Continental Central Enclosure No 19"
The camp at Foucaville was eventually to house 20,000 prisoners eventually 40,000 Axis prisoners were kept here, including 218 Generals and even 6 Admirals.
The camp arrived in kit form from America and was erected by Captain Huntingdon of the Engineer Corps employed 1,200 prisoners to help with the construction.
The camp was like a small town with roads and even a railway with 7 kms of track, two locomotives and seventy five wagons.
Electric lighting was also installed, several years before local villages were to have the same luxury.
A cinema and theatre a church with bells and a 1,000 bed hospital completed this independent village.
After the end of the war the prisoners were gradually released, but not until 1948 were the last inmates released.
The Germans were put to work on mine clearance, and if a prisoner found and defused thirty mines he was eligible for release. Others helped rebuild a shattered Normandy, road building, repairing bomb and shell damaged buildings and also working with farmers to restore fields.
Some were in no hurry to be released, knowing what awaited them if the came from Eastern Germany now administered by the Russians.
The German Cemetery at Orglands has many Germans interred there who died in accidents after the liberation.
Today nothing remains, except a plaque by the roadside to commemorate the camp.