Abruptly, strolling down from the Basilica you're confronted by a restored Sherman tank, the Blindé Jeanne d'Arc, preserved on Place du Colonel Edon in Marseille.
It commemorates the fierce combating throughout the Liberation of Marseille in August 1944, notably the assault on Notre-Dame de la Garde on August 25-26. After the landings on the Var coast, Moroccan goumiers and Algerian riflemen superior alongside American tanks. On August 25, as one Sherman rolled up Boulevard Gazzino (now named after Resistance fighter, Boulevard André Aune), it was disabled (reportedly by a grenade). Three crew members had been killed immediately.
Restored and displayed on the foot of Notre-Dame de la Garde, the Blindé Jeanne d'Arc stands as a monument to those occasions and to those that fought for Marseille's liberation.
