La Dame de Trévières

Representing a winged woman with an Adrian helmet, La Dame de Trévières was sculpted by Edmond Le Tual de Laheudrie, a local historian and mayor of Trévières who passionately loved this town. Le Tual de Laheudrie was born in Trévières and built a house on a hill nearby just to be able to soak in the views of the town and the marshes around every time he would look out his windows.

But La Dame de Trévières would have another story of her own, long after her creation. During D-Day, in June 1944, an exploding bomb sent from Omaha Beach took out most of her face and she fell on the floor. In the aftermath of the liberation of the town, it was decided that she would not be fixed, as a reminder of the atrocities of World War II. She then became a symbol for both wars, a symbol that suffered the same fate as many soldiers who served during both wars.

In 1994, numerous American vets from World War II came back to Normandy for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Some discovered La Dame de Trévières, her story and fell in love with her. So much that over the years after that, veterans kept coming back to Trévières to see her. In 2000, requests were made to the town council to sell or offer the statue to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, where 19 soldiers who died at Omaha during D-Day were originally from.

The town council agreed to having a copy made of the statue. The new statue, called The Lady of Trévières was inaugurated on the 23rd of October 2002 by President George W. Bush in Bedford, Virginia, where you can still see her. The original is still in the center of Trévières, next to the church, eight miles from Omaha Beach.