On June 7 and 8, 1944, just hours after the D-Day invasion, 18 Canadian soldiers were executed by German troops of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, commanded by Kurt Meyer. The men were shot and their bodies buried by the Germans in the garden at Abbaye d’Ardenne, near Caen, France.
When the Vico family, owners of the property, returned to their home after the war, they noticed that their gardens had been disturbed. They then discovered the bodies.
Meyer was brought to trial for the murders in December 1945. He was found guilty and sentenced to death — a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment. He served eight years at New Brunswick’s Dorchester Penitentiary and, on Sept. 7, 1954, was released. He died of a heart attack seven years later.
D-DAY AT 75: Remembering the heroes and sacrifices of Atlantic Canada:
- VIDEO: The road to D-Day
- Why a school in France is named for a Pictou soldier
- U-boat hunter Roderick Deon returns to Juno Beach for D-Day
- Sound of gunfire rang in P.E.I. soldier’s ears
- North Nova Scotia Highlanders at the sharp end of D-Day invasion
- STORY MAP: Follow the D-Day experience of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders
- 12 North Nova Scotia Highlanders murdered at Abbaye d’Ardenne
- ‘It was noisy as the devil,’ says St. John’s torpedo man
- 59th Newfoundland Heavy Regiment was eager to do its part
- A P.E.I. dispatcher’s long, uncertain journey to Normandy
- LAURENT LE PIERRÈS: D-Day invasion was best birthday present for my Dad
- ‘Sight of our boys being blown up ... wouldn’t leave my mind:’ Bedford veteran, author
- Dartmouth veteran's first combat mission was D-Day invasion
- Halifax air gunner had bird’s-eye view of D-Day
- ‘We had everything fired at us but the galley sink’: Yarmouth County veterans share war and D-Day memories
- New Waterford veteran has lived good life after surviving D-Day invasion
- JOHN DeMONT: An old film clip of D-Day shows the nature of courage
- D-Day landing map’s origins a mystery to army museum historians
