the destruction followed the railroad tracks. Local residence think of the war years as divided into three phases: La Drôle de guerre – 1 September 1939, to June 1940 General mobilisation The Drôle de Guerre or "Phoney War" The exodus or "Exode" German occupation – June 1940 to August 1944 Military control, requisitions, restrictions Local and national upheaval Problems of supply shortages Liberation – summer 1944 Aerial bombing and the Allied Landing on D-Day, 6 June 1944 Battles for Liberation – August 13–15, 1944 Population Neighbouring communes suffered from the rural exodus and lost the majority of their inhabitants (e.g. Joué du Plain: 925 in 1806, down to 201 in 1975), thus sharing in the collapse of the population of the Department of the Orne as a whole (443,673 in 1836, down to 292,337 in 1999). But over the last 250 years Ecouché has broadly maintained its numbers at between 1200 and 1500. Today the Commune has 1390 inhabitants (2005 census), of which 54.1% female and 45.9% male. Half of them own their own homes, 98.9% have running water, 82.2% own at least one vehicle; while 38.1% are in paid employment, 4.5% are seeking jobs and 31% live on retirement pensions. Geography At the heart of Lower Normandy, two hundred kilometers due west of Paris, Écouché nestles in a depression on the edge of the Paris Basin. The underlying ground stratum is of brioverien schist, which surfaces nearby at La Courbe and Mesnil-Glaise. In Écouché it is covered by vesulian limestone, in turn surmounted by relatively fertile soil deposits from the three rivers that provide the commune with water: the Orne to the north, the Cance to the east and the Udon to the south. The extent of the commune, in spite of the addition in 1821 of the old commune of Méheudin, remains a modest . The built-up area extends beyond the Orne and the Udon Rivers into the communes of Sérans to the west, and Sevrai to the south. See also Communes of the Orne department Château de la Motte, Joué du Plain References Former communes of Orne