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Sainte-Anne d’Auray National Cemetery

La nécropole nationale de Sainte-Anne d’Auray. © ECPAD

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Located in the town of Sainte-Anne d'Auray, the national cemetery, built in 1959, is home to over 2,100 soldiers who died for France during battle in the Loire in 1870-1871, the two World Wars and the Indochina War. The cemetery also holds the remains of soldiers who died in former health facilities that were created in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 as well as the bodies of those buried in communal war cemeteries in Brittany, Poitou and the Pays de la Loire. Since 1983-1984, this site has brought together the bodies of French soldiers who were originally buried in communal military graveyards in Normandy and those of Belgian soldiers who died in WWI that were excavated in Brittany. In 1988, the graves of Belgian soldiers who died in WWI in Haute-Garonne and Hautes-Pyrénées were transferred to the Sainte-Anne d’Auray National Cemetery.

There are twenty French soldiers from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 at rest in an ossuary monument at the cemetery. From WWI, there are 427 French soldiers, 274 Belgian soldiers, nine Russian soldiers and 1 Chinese soldier buried in individual graves. As for WWII, there are 1,355 French soldiers, including 188 in the ossuary, ten Spanish soldiers, one Polish soldier and five Soviet soldiers, one of whom is in the ossuary. Five soldiers who died for France in Indochina are also buried at the cemetery.

La nécropole nationale de Sainte-Anne d’Auray. © ECPAD

Équipe de la Croix Rouge au collège Saint François-Xavier à Vannes (1914-1918). Salle de l'atrium de cet hôpital auxiliaire avec le personnel soignant et les malades. © Archives départementales du Morbihan

Groupe de blessés de l'Hopital temporaire n° 18 - Pontivy (1914-1918). © Archives départementales du Morbihan/fonds Albert Chaldebas

Blessés hospitalisés au Palais Gouraud - Belle-Ile-en-Mer (1914-1918). © Archives départementales du Morbihan

Salle d'opération du dispensaire de la Croix Rouge de Saint-Brieuc. © Archives départementales des Côtes d'Armor

Bombardement de la plaine de Baud, 17 juin 1940. © Archives de Rennes/don Le Cann

20 juin 1944, décrochage de Saint-Marcel, halte dans une grange. Trois hommes du Special Air Service (SAS), parachutistes de la France Libre, sont reconnaissables à leur tenue, ils sont accompagnés de deux résistants. © Musée de la Résistance bretonne – Saint-Marcel