D-day
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
26
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Bayeux,
Normandy,
France
Saturday, October 4, 2008
First stop was at the Eastern end of the D-day beaches at Pegasus Bridge, which was a strategic bridge where the Allied troops landed in gliders at night and took the bridge. It is quite incredible to believe that 3 gliders can land within about 50m of a bridge, even at night and take anyone by surprise.
Pegasus Bridge
There are three memorials beside the bridge that mark the places where they landed. About 20m in each direction and they were goners as one side is a canal and the other side is swampland. You can then cross Pegasus Bridge (not the original but a newer version) and see the first French house to be liberated by the Allies. It is now a café which is raking in the tourist dollars selling memorabilia and very expensive snacks. We then drove through lots of tiny little laneways parallel to the coast for about 30km, seeing signs for all the landing beaches such as Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah. Matt just loved driving these roads which were barely wide enough for two cars to pass and had the fronts of houses forming the edge of the roadway. As you approach the town of Arromanches les Bains there is a lookout which provides great views out over the Channel and the remains of Mulberry Harbour. It is a tourist trap, one that we sadly fell into as we paid our 2 Euro to park the car to visit a free lookout.
In 1940, during WW2, the Allied troops were overwhelmed by the German army in Northern France and Belgium and they all fled to Dunkirk in Northern France and were evacuated back to English shores. This allowed the Germans to occupy most of France until 1944, when the Allies pulled off the enormous task of invading the coast of Normandy in a move which almost guaranteed that they won the war
First house liberated by the Allies
. The invasion day became known as D-day, or Jour J in French. It was on this day that the names of the beaches that I mentioned above became forever a part of history, as these were the landing beaches of the Allied troops. The British landed at Gold and Sword, the Canadians at Juno and the Americans at Omaha and Utah. In the days following this invasion, as the troops were pushing inland and liberating French towns along the way, the Allies set about building Mulberry Harbour. It was an artificial harbour that was constructed just off the shore at Arromanches in order to provide a safe place to unload all the supplies needed by the troops after D-day. This was something that I had never realised until we visited and it is quite an incredible feat that they achieved. For the years leading up to D-day, the British had secretly been constructing enormous concrete barriers that were designed to be sunk to the bottom of the sea. These were to form a surge barrier to block the waves from the English Channel, thus allowing ships to move inside the makeshift harbour and unload vital supplies, tanks and support vehicles. They started by sinking a few old military ships the day after D-day then continued to tow these concrete barriers from the Thames across the Channel and sink them in formation off the beach at Arromanches. In only 2 weeks they had constructed a fully functioning artificial harbour. Most of Mulberry harbour has been washed away by storm surges since the war, but there are still large sections remaining that are best visible at low tide
Mulberry Harbour
. The lookout we stopped at provides a great view, despite the gale force winds that almost blew us off the cliffs. However it wasn't until we visited the Museum de Debarquement in Arromanches that we grasped just how incredible this harbour actually was. They have models that show how all the floating platforms linking together to allow tanks and trucks to drive from boats onto the shore. They also have real footage from the war which shows exactly how it was done. It was absolutely incredible stuff.Our next discovery was complete luck as Matt mentioned that he would love to see one of the gun batteries that the Germans built which are scattered all along the Normandy coast. Having no idea where they were we headed off for Omaha Beach and the American cemetery. We hadn't even gone 1km out of town before we saw the sign for Batteries Longues ser Mer. We found out later that we had stumbled on not only 4 batteries, complete with damage from where they were bombed by the Allies, but the only batteries that still contain their original guns. It was quite amazing to see and be able to climb inside these structures that had been used to shoot Allied ships in the Channel during WW2. As a result of our great find, we unfortunately pulled into Omaha Beach American Cemetery at 5.02pm to find they closed at 5pm. Disappointed to have missed it by so little, but pleased with our great day of exploring Normandy, we headed for our B&B in Bayeux
D-day Museum at Arromanches
. Our B&B for tonight was another recommendation by Alistair Sawday on his website. The real selling point for us was the part that said that Lt-Col Chillcott and his wife welcome you to their home. Who better to stay with in Normandy than a retired British army Colonel. We eventually found the place and were greeted by a lovely older English lady who immediately offered us a cup of tea. She then showed us around, including the room in the barn which looked like a command post from the war. Every wall was covered in maps of the D-day landings and various other bits of war memorabilia. We had obviously stumbled on a true history lover. The B&B itself was in a lovely old French three-storey farmhouse, but decked out in true British style with a formal sitting room and pictures of the Queen on the wall. We had the pleasure of spending an hour or so sipping tea from fine china cups in the sitting room, whilst chatting with Lt-Col Chillcott about the war. Sadly he is not is the best state of health anymore and the house is filled with wheelchairs and hoist lifts up the stairs in order for him to get around. He was still an incredibly interesting person to talk with and has obviously seen a lot of the world in his younger years. We were a bit disappointed that we couldn't stay and have a few gin & tonics with him as the evening wore on, but we had to head into town and find ourselves some dinner.
We wandered Bayeux in the rain and saw the Cathedral and the surrounding narrow cobbled streets of the old town. Intrigued by such a cute little town, we decided over dinner to change our itinerary for tomorrow to include a visit to the famous tapestry for which Bayeux can thank its tourist trade.
