So, fully rested and well breakfasted, the intrepid traveller set forth into undiscovered deepest France, etc, etc……
Followed the Holt book Itinerary 6, which included Pegasus Bridge, British cemeteries and the Merville battery.
Good start to the day by having a coffee at the famous Pegasus Bridge Café Gondree, served by a lady of “advanced” years, presumably the daughter of the original owner. She would have been a small child in 1944. I went nice and early, before all the tourist (!) buses arrived and was rewarded by it being a beautiful quiet sunny morning, with just cyclists about.
As a special bonus, the bridge ( a modern updated copy of the original) was raised for a small fishing boat. Looking at where the bridge was and the memorials for the three gliders landed, it amazes me that they got so close, before the bridge defenders even noticed ! Ref the film THE LONGEST DAY and loads of stuff on YouTube for more info. Onto the Memorial Pegasus, the museum associated with the Bridge. Won’t bore you with shed-loads of detail, but a few things caught my eye:
- The original bridge is “parked” in the museum grounds. Bit spooky walking on such a historic structure
- There’s a bit of a typical Bailey Bridge in the grounds as well. Inside the museum, I found an instruction book on how to build said bridge ( Sorry, engineers rule OK. Bit of a “busman’s holiday” that one)
- A curiosity in the form of a Christmas greeting from Hitler to the inventor of the bridge, dated 1941. Strange.
- A model of a glider to work out the correct centre of gravity – complete with a sample calculation ( sorry, more engineering)
- A pigeon carrier – strapped to the front of a paratrooper. Poor bird must have been frightened to death
- A wood burning steam-powered hydraulic pump
Next stop was the site of the Merville Battery, a heavily fortified German gun emplacement, that could pound the beaches. It became a priority target. Also, there was a fully restored Dakota C47, which was to become the backbone of the early airborne landings. In one of the bunkers, there was an audio/visual presentation which purported to give a realistic impression of the sights and sounds during the attack on the battery. I don’t know about anybody else, but is sure gave me a scare – really loud and very disorienting.
My last stop was at the Cemetery at Banneville. More that 2000 bodies buried here, mainly British, including the artist Rex Whistler. Very sobering. Made me appreciate the sacrifice these guys made to bring back freedom to France. In the town square, rather incongruously was a red phone box !
All along the route there were signs of the 70th anniversary with British, French and American flags abound. Loads of individual memorials to specific actions/regiments scattered around the countryside. I was starting to get an idea of the true scale of the whole enterprise.