French Countryside Beauty and then the Reality of War

Last December, while staying in the Normandy peninsula of Cotentin, I made a day trip across the lush peninsula from the west coast to the east coast to visit an area that my D-Day paratrooper father fought in; the famous D Day village of Ste-Mere-Eglise. 
During my drive, I passed through a lovely village of Bricquebec and was startled by a large fortress right in the middle of town. It just loomed high above the village square. It was breathtaking, I must say. After a short visit I continued on the Ste-Mere-Eglise. Just outside of Bricquebec I saw what I thought was a partial model plane attached to a high flagpole off to the side of the road. Curious, I stopped and found it was a model of a doomed B-17 bomber that crashed here ( during the D Day invasion) killing all the crew and the locals erected this site to honor them. It was quite emotional to me to be there and then 20 minutes later it got very emotional to see the paratrooper museum in Ste-Mere-Eglise.
The area in the Cotentin is so beautiful and peaceful, it was hard to imagine that a  great battle ever took place here.