Point du Hoc to Luc sur Mer

From the pacifist perspective the visit to the "D Day Beaches" (Jour J in French!) had the potential to be quite a depressing day, but the ride through real Manior France was fantastic with quite literally scores of medieval court yard buildings lining the roads and dotting the rolling countryside ... but as a tourist black spot the speed limits were a tedious 45mph throughout!


















I'll now hand over to the war mongers for their high lights of the day                      Mark








From the 'war mongering' perspective the D Day beaches leave me with a sense of awe and admiration for those who were involved in the largest sea invasion in history.  I have been here before whilst in the RAF and had the good fortune of doing a military guided tour.  That tour gave me the background detail that makes visits to this place all the more rewarding.  The scale of that task is breathtaking and being here brings it home and reinforces my respect for those that made the ultimate sacrifice to which we should never forget.





Point Du Hoc is the sight where the US Rangers carried out a cliff assault to 'take out' the guns that could of caused problems for the assault beaches of Utah and Omaha.  However once the Ranger made it to the top they discovered that the guns had in fact been moved!  Older readers may recall this from the film 'The Longest Day'.  Younger (and older-me included) may recall this from playing the computer game 'Call of Duty 2' which is so accurate that  actually knew my way around one of the defensive bunkers from having been there before in game mode!



Omaha beach and the cemetery are probably known to most people (if not where have you been?) and was so well depicted in the films 'The Longest Day' and 'Saving Private Ryan'.  The scale of the cemetery is breathtaking and contains graves of the fallen not only from Omaha beach but from many of the other battles that took place right up until the end of the war.  All the graves face the US (nice touch).  The reason the US troops were tasked with taking Utah and Omaha beaches (named after the Corps commanders home states) was that they were the nearest to the US.  The British assault beaches of Gold, Sword and Juno are further to the east.

I personally find the stories behind each battle fascinating with the tales of near disaster, courage, leadership, naivety, sense of duty, friendship, fear, heroism...... (you get the idea).  So for me not really 'war mongering' more a case of hoping it never ever has to happen again.           Pete




Part of the mulberry harbour constructed on the orders of Churchil to provide a safe anchorage on the beach after British troops had secured them. They were huge concrete structures towed over and beached in a semi circle around a vast beach. The size was a suprise and gave you an idea of what it had been like in 1944. It says something that even today a substancial part of this harbour still exists.




Bob on the beach at Luc Sur Mer. Its a long story but my dad served for 6 plus years in the 2nd world war. Shortly after D Day he arrived of the coast of Normandy and was billetted on this beach ( in tents ) for a number of days before going inland an onwards to Holland where he met my mum and finally Germany from where he was demobbed.It was a visit I have always wanted to make another box ticked.




Bob and Olive arrive at Luc Sur Mer. Looking at the town today it is hard to imagine what it was like back in 1944 when so many men like my dad just did their bit to make Europe free again. We all owe them a huge debt of gratitude and its good to see that in this part of France they do not forget.

Not 24 Hours or anything like it

The God's in their heaven (if he believed in them) stuck Pete the Younger down today with a mighty and plentiful out pouring .... nuf said me thinks!
The rest of the happy band did a mammoth fight with Garmin and learned much about out of date map sets and the trials and tribulations of figure of 8 routes
But a brilliant D road experience and Buffalo Grill for lunch! So not a total write off !

Falaise and Pegasus and a dampening

This was planned to be a short ride through the Suisse Normand to Falaise to see the birth place of a person Stef seems to think was called William the Bastard!
We arrived in Falise in torrents of rain and decided that some of us would run again through the "Alps" whilst Bob and Pete would press on and up to Pegasus bridge

Pete and Bob took the road North towards the area where glider borne troops took and held the Pegasus bridge in the early hours of June 6th 1944. The weather which had been wet in Falaise now became torrential and by the time we hit the Caen ring road visibility was down to a few metres and the traffic was heavy all driving at break neck speed despite the conditions. A few kilometres on we decided to stop dry out and have something to eat,McDonald's appeared and against all our best instincts we stopped . Dry and fed ( there big macs were surprisingly delicious) we went the short distance to the bridge. 

 

 Olive and the Great White at the Bridge

The bridge is now a site dedicated to remembering those brave men and the museum has interesting artifacts from that night in 1944. One surprise was the very small area that they landed three gliders laden with troops,there skill and determination to get the job done was outstanding.  It does seem that every village has a union jack flying along side the tricolour after nearly 70 year they still remember.

 This is a replacement bridge but to a very similar scale, large.The original bridge is a few meters away in the museum.

A replica Horsa glider in which 28 men the pilot, co pilot and officers landed at night in a field the size of a village green .Heroes doesn't do it justice.

An hour or so later we decided to skip the trip to Luc Sur Mer ( see later blog) and start a very wet ride home. Now we learnt a new lesson rural petrol stations are few and far between, Pete was down to 1.5 litres when at Flers we finally managed to fill our tanks. On the day my Beema Olive managed 75 MPG now that's cheap biking. Finally  home to our well earned meal on a table laden with French food....and wine...and beer...and calvados...well you get the idea.        Bob       

The infamous 4 go wild in Normandy

So here we are again the same fat old fools tootling their way through Normandy this time with those well deserved stops for 3 hour long lunches each day!

 Our House from the road

 Now nobody mention that big tit on the horizon

 Isn't it interesting what a panorama does to the human body!

 Site for the new Normandy International airport