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00:00 It's June 6th 1944 and as thousands of Allied soldiers storm the beaches of Normandy,
00:06 hope of victory spreads to towns like Saint-Lô.
00:08 But history would deal this French town a different hand.
00:12 Survivors like Yves Fauvel remember the bombings like they were yesterday.
00:16 He was six years old at the time.
00:19 The location of my grandparents' house was practically here.
00:23 We lived just across the street.
00:24 We left and then everything collapsed.
00:28 From 8pm, British and American bombers reduced the town to rubble.
00:34 The bombs kept falling.
00:43 The people were next to us.
00:46 We heard screams.
00:48 It was scary.
00:50 I was six years old.
00:53 I remember everything.
00:54 Yves and his family tried to escape the bombs.
00:58 But what he saw while fleeing would stay with him for life.
01:01 At this place, there was a man who was screaming, with his legs torn off.
01:09 He was screaming.
01:11 It's the memory I have.
01:14 I still see it.
01:15 The town was an important crossroads and transport hub.
01:20 For the Allies, strategic objectives would prevail over the cost of civilian life.
01:25 But in senior ranks of the US Army, there was reluctance.
01:28 In the end, they decided to drop leaflets, warning residents to leave.
01:32 Unfortunately, because of the weather, the leaflets fell very far from their targets.
01:38 In Salou, they fell dozens of kilometres away, in smaller villages.
01:41 So it means that when the US bombs first started falling at 8pm,
01:46 most people were still at home.
01:47 That's why the death toll was so high.
01:49 This is what was left.
01:53 Up to 500 people are thought to have lost their lives.
01:57 Many of the dead were never identified.
01:59 Here it says 'bones'.
02:03 We don't know whose remains they are.
02:06 They were found at the hospital.
02:09 It was very painful for the survivors.
02:12 They were scared.
02:14 They suffered.
02:16 They didn't want to speak about it to their children.
02:18 It was too hard for them.
02:25 It took Yves Fauvel 80 years to talk about his experience.
02:28 A lifetime later, he's still coming to terms with what happened that night.