06/01/2026
Really?
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🚨 A French memorial to British WW2 heroes has been stolen - just days before it hosts the D-Day commemorations.
The bronze statue of the bagpipe player on the monument to the 51st Highland Infantry Division - a tribute to the British infantrymen who had stormed Juno Beach on June 6th 1944 - was stolen on Friday (May 29).
With just a week until D-Day service, French police are trying to find the one-tonne statue taken from at Bréville-les-Monts, north of Caen and bring the thieves to justice.
Visitors from Britain were due to gather around the statue next Saturday, on the 82nd anniversary of D-Day.
An investigating source says: "The statue was reported missing early on Friday morning – it was forced off its plinth, and clearly loaded on to a vehicle. A huge amount of effort went into the planned theft of a statue, which will be hard to conceal."
An early theory is that scrap metal dealers intended to smash the statue to pieces, so as to sell off the bronze.
A spokesman for Bréville-les-Monts town council said: ‘It is with great sadness that we discovered the disappearance of the statue of the bagpipe player on the monument to the 51st Highland Infantry Division.
"This was a shameful act, just one week before the D-Day commemorations."