Saturday 31st May
Up early and ready for a big day. Sam has a rough itinerary planned. It is the 70th Anniversary the D Day landing and celebrations here are going to be huge with a month of festivities planned.
We start at the Musee Memorial de Bataille de Normandie Bayeux. A comprehensive display. Uniforms of the enemy and allied forces and their weapons , military vehicles and facts and information. Fantastic displays that were especially good for me, to get me up to speed with history.
Next a visit to the British and Commonwealth Cemetary where there are nine New Zealanders buried.
The site of so many headstones is sobering and this isn't the biggest of the cemeteries. There are two larger American Cemetaries in the area.
We then drove to St Mere Eglis which is famous for when US paratroopers were deployed in the early hours of June 6th surprising a German Garrison Station there. Many paratroopers were shot out of trees and the sky as they landed. John Steele's parachute a became entangled in the steeple of the St Mere Eglis church. He was shot and wounded in the foot and pretended to be dead and was rescued hours later, after the Americans overpowered the Germans.
Beautiful little village. There were so many military vehicles in the area, with people dressed up in full uniform. We stop into a little cafe for a "French Pie" - baguette with ham and creamy camembert cheese!
Topped up and raring to go we stop in at the Airborne Museum. Superb displays, featuring a glider and aircraft, uniforms and artefacts from the paratroopers. The French sure know how to do museums!
We are taken through a room which is a simulator - enabling us to feel like what it would be like to be jumping out of a plane and into the dark. Incredible. It must have been terrifying for them.
Next stop is Utah Beach, on the way we passed through beautiful villages. One in particular St Mary
is gorgeous. Most quaint buildings. War stories attached to outside of significant buildings of what occurred on June 6th. There was a fantastic military memorabilia shop. Heaps of items for sale, uniforms, weapons, etc Amazing. In the middle of the town square there is a camp set up and military bar set up. Everyone is really into the celebrations.
Utah Beach. We visited the Musee. The focus is on the amphibious landings. More awesome displays, but focussing on the landing craft. A fantastic movie of Operation Overlord. Walked on the beach which saw the first beach landings on D Day at 6.30am.
Pointe du Hoc is the next stop which overlooks Omaha Beach. Numerous German artillery pieces were over run by the American Ranger Battalion who scaled the cliffs. Lots of artillery craters and ruined gun emplacements are there.
Omaha Beach is a beautiful sandy beach. Collville sur Mer was the site of massive American losses on D Day. Of 34,000 US troops who landed on Omaha Beach they suffered 2,000 casualties.
The American Cemetary at Omaha beach holds 9387 graves including 33 pairs of brother buried side by side.
Arromanches was the next stop . This was the site where the British pre-fabricated harbour or "Mulberry" was located. Lots of it is still visible today.
Our last stop was de Longues sur Mer. This was a German coastal defence batterie on the landing beaches that had a command post and 4 bunkers each with 150mm gun. It is the only batterie to have it's original guns and eh site has a view over the landing beaches.
An amazing day. Saw quite a bit, by no means all. It was a 12 hour day. There are significant sites all over the Normandy region including lots more Cemetaries and Museums. The French celebrate D Day every year but this year is exceptional. Would loved to have been there during the celebrations.
