Bény-sur-Mer was created as a permanent resting place for Canadian soldiers who had been temporarily interred in smaller plots close to where they fell. As is usual for war cemeteries or monuments, France granted Canada a perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery. The graves contain soldiers from the Canadian 3rd Division and 15 Airmen killed in the Battle of Normandy. The cemetery also includes four British graves and one French grave, for a total of 2049 markers. Bény-sur-Mer contains the remains of 9 sets of brothers, a record for a Second World War cemetery.
A large number of dead in the cemetery were killed in early July 1944 in the Battle for Caen. The cemetery also contains soldiers who fell during the initial D-Day assault of Juno Beach. The Canadian Prisoners of War illegally executed at the Ardenne Abbey are interred here. It also contains the grave of Rev. (H/Capt) Walter Brown, chaplain to the 27th Armoured Regiment (Sherbrooke Fusiliers) and the only chaplain killed in cold blood in World War 2. Rev Brown was murdered on the night of June 6/7 by members of III/25th SS Panzer Grenedier Regt near Galmanche, but his body was not found until July 1944. Canadians killed later in the campaign were interred in the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery.
References:The Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls was part of the federal sanctuary of the three Gauls dedicated to the cult of Rome and Augustus celebrated by the 60 Gallic tribes when they gathered at Lugdunum (Lyon). The amphitheatre was built at the foot of the La Croix-Rousse hill at what was then the confluence of the Rhône and Saône.
Excavations have revealed a basement of three elliptical walls linked by cross-walls and a channel surrounding the oval central arena. The arena was slightly sloped, with the building"s south part supported by a now-vanished vault. The arena"s dimensions are 67,6m by 42m. This phase of the amphitheatre housed games which accompanied the imperial cult, with its low capacity (1,800 seats) being enough for delegations from the 60 Gallic tribes.
The amphitheatre was expanded at the start of the 2nd century. Two galleries were added around the old amphitheatre, raising its width from 25 metres to 105 metres and its capacity to about 20,000 seats. In so doing it made it a building open to the whole population of Lugdunum and its environs.