D-day beaches - Phil & Jill

For as long as I have known Phillip he has longed to see where the actions took place on D-day on the Normandy beaches. It has played a major part in his reading and documentary watching for years. Today he took it off his bucket list.

Yesterday we went to the Tourist Information Centre here in Bayeux to enquire whether we could get on any tour to do the beaches. Everyone we had spoken to recently had said that the tours were fully booked. This was reinforced by the two other American guests (Rose and Larina) staying at the B&B when over breakfast said that they had booked weeks ago!! Anyway luck was on our side and there were 2 places left for the full day Overlord tour to the British and Canadian beaches and a half day tour for tomorrow of one of the American beaches and cemetry.

So today we joined 6 others in a mini van (Americans - Wendy and Scott and a family with parents Michelle - a Canadian, husband Scott - American and children Madeleine and Evan) driven and commentated by Pierre.

Pierre was a fountain of knowledge of all things historical. In addition to his war history, he had a Master of American history from his year abroad studying in the States. He had the ability to give well paced commentary with giving the big picture including maps; then narrowing it down to specific battles pointing out on the ground details and referencing it down to pictures in his folder from the war (many taken by war photographers at the time) and then breaking it down to personal stories. He was humourous and informative. You could easily feel his love and thorough knowledge.

We commenced the tour by going to Pegasus Bridge which gave the others an opportunity to learn of the actions of the 6th Airborne Division in their actions to take down the important strategic bridge which I told you about in an earlier blog. However Pierre added to our knowledge, for example showing the exact points of where the skipper of the glider had landed Major John Howard only 47 m from the bridge, a 2nd and 3rd gliders came down only metres away as well. Not bad going in the dark, in unfamiliar territory and the threat of German counter attack. It also had an element of luck as the pilot came in too quickly, hitting the ground at 95mph forcing the ejection of the two pilots and the men in the glider to be momentarily knocked out. No wonder it made such gripping footage in the iconic movie, The Longest Day.

Pierre also told us of the owner of the cafe opening his door to the injured Sgt Brotheridge who had been hit crossing the bridge to turn off the switch on the other side. Unfortunately Brotheridge died and was the first British casualty of the campaign. The current owner of the cafe is a lady of nearly 80 years old. She has followed in her father's footsteps by keeping the cafe open and the rule that even to this day no German person is permitted to walk through the door. We thought that Pierre's details added much more to out story.

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Inside the memorial I found new things which I had missed the other day. The story of Brian (known affectionately as Bing,) a dog that has jumped with its master at Pegasus. He had done the required number of jumps in practise in England to be called a fully trained paratrooper. He was trained to silently round up lost soldiers and had been responsible for saving many lives for which he was decorated.

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Another fascinating thing was the tiny magnetised compasses within buttons from soldiers pants. Also a silk scarf with a printed map of the area was stitched into their uniforms.

The ingenuity of the civilians was demonstrated by a girl's dress made from recycled parachute silk and a bomb cylinder being used as a church bell after the church had been bombed.

Ranville British war cemetry was not far away from Benouville the name of the village where Pegasus bridge is located. Some 4,000 British soldiers are buried here, together with a handful of other nationalities, French Belgium, 1 New Zealander, 2 Australians. Most of the fallen were pilots ot paratroopers and whilst there a few 19 yo most were 23-26 yo. The height of the main statute is determined by how many graves are in the cemetry. The sword is turning down to honour the fallen. The twin tombstones indicate that so little remains could be found to identify the two soldiers individually so their headstones touch.

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A major offensive occurred in 3 waves at Sword Beach, now signalled by a statute of a flame. There was only a narrow passage way to get off the beach through the concrete wall built by the Germans. The beach was also strewn with obstacles put there by the Germans. The narrow opening caused a delating bottle neck with all the armoured vehicles and troops trying to get off the beach area. Remember the weather was nasty and the sea very lumpy. This sector that included Ouistrehan, Colleville-sur-Orne and Lion was assigned to the British 3rd Infantry Division. They landed at 7.25am with the mission of reaching the right banl of the Orne and establishing a link with the 6th Airborne Division and the Canadian 3rd Division to quickly take Caen and its airport at Carpiquet. The fierce resistance and delays were very costly as the Germans had time to bring up their Panzer tank division and build a defensive line around the north of Caen and thus stopping the progress of the Allies to get to Paris. The Brits had their Shermans so one can only imagine the noise, dust and sights of casualities.

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Lunch at a cafe on the edge of the seaside promenade was very welcome indeed after all this heavy information. Duck maryland for Phil and a crepe sucre for me.

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