WWII Weekend

June 6, 2014 marked the 70^th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy, France and the beginning of the end of WWII. Four years ago, my husband and I were able to visit Normandy and take a tour of all the D-Day landing beaches, villages and the Normandy American Cemetery. It was a moving and emotional experience and one that will stay with me the rest of my days.

My step-father and grandfather both fought in WWII. My step-father was in the Pacific and was wounded in Okinawa, Japan and my grandfather was in France, but I’m not sure where exactly he was.

When we found out that there was a WWII Weekend happening not too far from us, of course we had to make plans to attend. We had no idea what to expect…maybe seeing lots of airplanes and hopefully meeting some WWII vets. We’ve been to re-enactments for many different things and some are done really well and some are just sad.

This one was AMAZING. It was held at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum on an airbase and it was huge. There was a “French Village” built with wonderful little buildings that you can go into and talk to people about what it was like during wartime France. We met a lovely lady in the French Tailor’s shop. She had a vast amount of information about fashions during the war and how rationing effected both men and women. She was just wonderful.

There were encampments of soldiers everywhere to give you a real feeling of what it was like to live in the trenches. FDR, Patton, MacArthur and even Bettie Grable were present and in full character. There were lots of beautiful WWII planes and they re-enacted some of the famous air fights.

The event is actually three full days and on Friday and Saturday nights they have live music in the hangar and a dance. We just went on Saturday, but we could easily have gone for two whole days….next year. As the day winded down towards the dance in the evening, it really started to feel like we were in 1944. Almost everyone who attended this portion of the day was dressed to the nines!!!! It was surreal and beautiful. So many dashing soldiers and dapper gentlemen, and the ladies wore their Victory rolls and beautiful hats and dresses….it was pure heaven.

And if that wasn’t enough, there were several friends from the Facebook Fashion Group I belong to that I was finally able to meet in person. And of course they were all amazing and wonderful people. I do hope that I get to spend more time with them in the future.