Normandy: The D-Day Landing Beaches

This was quite a moving experience as we drove the coast of Normandy visiting the beaches where the allied troops landed on June 6, 1944, beginning the liberation of Europe.

We started at Juno Beach near the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer where an impressive museum has been built through private donations from Canadians.

The Juno Beach Centre was opened in 2003 and is staffed by Canadian student interns on four-month assignments. The exhibits trace Canadian involvement in World War 2 and in the D-Day invasion. We walked out of the museum onto the beach through a steel passageway
built in the size and shape of the D-Day landing craft. We passed old German gun emplacements half sunk into the sand and the tracks of
the tunnels that joined them. Click on the photos below for larger views.

Further along the coast we saw the Mulberry harbour that was towed from England: hundreds of huge concrete and steel structures five stories tall were sunk and linked with floating docks to form a port where heavy ships could land equipment. The allies were worried they would not be able to take over an existing harbour in usable condition. Wanting a place to build the new harbour, they did not invade the beach at Arromanches as part of the initial invasion. Instead, they captured the area by land later on the day of June 6 and by the next day they had begun the construction of the port and had begun landing ships. It is an incredible achievement of engineering.

Further along the coast at Longues-sur-mer we came across German heavy cannons still sitting in their concrete bunkers on the cliffs, pointing out across the channel.
Although they were mostly intact, you could still see where one had been blown apart by incoming fire. The open fields and the small villages with their church spires gave us very vivid images of how it must have felt for the soldiers on those days to face the risks and fears as they moved across the countryside.

Here is a short film clip on the landings that day from the History Channel web site.

We made the turn back towards our B and B at Omaha Beach where the main American force landed and returned via Bayeux, a beautiful medieval town which, unlike most of Normandy, was largely undamaged during the war.
Very picturesque narrow streets lead to the impressive cathedral that dates from the 11^th century. Bayeux is also the home of the famous tapestry that depicts the successful invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror in 1066.

A long day followed by a Sunday dinner in an old auberge, but more about that later.