Article published on ICI Cotentin on May 11, 2026 – By Pierre Coquelin
Planning permission was granted in February 2026 for the construction of a wartime captivity museum between Ravenoville and Foucarville. This is where a military camp for German prisoners was set up between 1944 and 1946. Ici Cotentin reports on the progress of the project.
From June 1944 to February 1946, Foucarville was home to one of the largest military camps for soldiers captured under German uniform: the Continental Central Prisoners of War Enclosure (CCPWE) 19. The small commune, with a population of 240 at the time, was home to over 100,000 Wehrmacht prisoners. The camp was run by an American military officer, Colonel Warren J. Kennedy. One entrance, for the prisoners, was in Foucarville; the other, for the staff, was on the Ravenoville side.
In 2017, the history of this camp was “rediscovered” via the publication of a book: Prisonniers allemands en Normandie, un camp américain à Foucarville, by Anne Broilliard and Benoît Lenoël. This is the starting point for a project led by the Warren J. Kennedy Association: to create a museum on wartime captivity in liberated Europe.