Cimetière Militaire de Bourdon

During the French campaign in June 1940, the fighting was particularly hard in the Amiens region. As soon as the Germans arrived on the Somme, six bridgeheads were set up on the south bank, in Péronne, Amiens, Corbie, Picquigny, Abbeville and Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme. All the bridges from Amiens to the sea were blown up, only two had been forgotten between the Etoile and Hangest-sur-Somme. It was at the level of the larris of Hangest-sur-Somme that the Panzers tanks of the German Marshal Rommel crossed the Somme. Opposite Hangest-sur-Somme, on the heights of the small village of Bourdon, a military cemetery has been built where 22,213 bodies of German soldiers lie, most of them having fallen in June 1940 or during the retreat in August and September 1944. This enclosed and secluded cemetery impresses by its size, its artistic dimension and its exceptional panorama on the valley of the Somme. In the center of the cemetery is a sanctuary where an imposing marble statue is enthroned: "the white lady" symbolizes the pain of mothers mourning their sons who died in the war.