Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery



The Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery is a Cemetery containing predominantly Canadian soldiers killed during the later stages of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. The Cemetery is located in the village of Cintheaux and named after Bretteville-sur-Laize in the Calvados department, between Caen and Falaise in lower Normandy.

History
Bretteville-sur-Laize was created as a permanent resting place for Canadian soldiers who had been temporarily buried in smaller plots close to where they fell. At the time of the cemetery's creation, France granted Canada a perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery. The graves contain 2793 soldiers from the 2nd Canadian Corps, 91 of them unknown, and 79 RCAF airmen killed in the Battle of Normandy.

A large number of dead in the cemetery were killed late July 1944 around Saint-André-sur-Orne and in the battle for the Falaise Pocket in August 1944.

Canadians killed earlier (June and early July) in the Battle of Normandy are buried near Juno Beach in the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery.

Location
The cemetery is located on the road between Caen and Falaise, about 14 km from Caen, in the comune of Cintheaux.