not while there were still so many normandy graveyards full of white crosses marking the graves of the fallen , old rusty hulks from the allied landings remaining visible at low tide on the beaches , ordnance being dug up regularly and stories told and re-told of acts either courageous ; like the tale of john steele , the d-day paratrooper who survived by playing dead when his chute caught on the church steeple of sainte-mre-glise or heinous atrocities such as the massacre of canadian prisoners of war at the ardenne abbey near caen and the deaths , further afield of the entire village of oradour-sur-glane in the closing days of the war .