| The start of the tour was to the action that took place at Pegasus
bridge, which was taken by Major John Howard's force, landing in Horsa
gliders. |
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| The photo shows the new bridge, the original is close by at
the museum. The weather was rather cold and windy while we were
there. |
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The photo on the left shows the gun position at the end of
the bridge, Howard's glider came to rest only about 50 yards from this
position, incredible bit of work by the pilot. On the other side of
the bridge is the Cafe Gondree. The original cafe owner and his wife
had passed information on the German troops to the Allies via the
Resistance. The bridges were essential to the Allies to protect the
left flank of the Invasion forces. |
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| The photo above and to the right are from the Times
newspaper, 26 April 2004. The one above shows Jim Wallwork who
piloted the first glider to Pegasus Bridge. He now lives in Canada
where he moved in 1956, he is now 84 and said he would be attending the
60th anniversary "dead or alive". The photo on the right
shows a cockpit of a Horsa that is being recreated for the Pegasus Museum. |
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| Staff Sergeant Geoff Barkway. The
Daily Telegraph for 18 June 2006 had an obituary for Geoff Barkway, he was
the pilot of the second glider at Pegasus Bridge and so would have landed
behind Jim Wallwork [above]. On landing Geoff's glider broke in two
and catapulted him through the canopy into an adjacent pond, he got back
to the glider and released the co-pilot who was trapped in the
glider. Geoff was later shot in the arm and would later lose his
arm. Because of 'admin screw-ups' he was belatedly awarded the DFM
for his part in this successful exploit. |
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| Sword Beach was the eastern
end of the Invasion beaches. This shot is taken from the main beach
exit on the 6th June. It shows the flat nature of the beach, no
seawall, and the beach side houses that were used as landmarks by the
incoming landing craft. |
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Having driven along behind Juno and Gold beaches, we went
into Arromanches, including a visit to
their museum. Arromanches was the location of one the famous
Mulberry Harbours, and some of the remains of the large concrete units can
still be seen in the photo. There are a number more of these
sweeping round and out of sight to the right of this photo. |
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| The day rounded off with a trip to the Longues
shore battery, with its four concrete bunkers and the guns still
there, though in different states of destruction depending on how badly
they were hit that day in '44. |
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| This was the eastern most of the four
guns. As Richard would say, it's been 'well wellied' by the naval
guns of the invading force. |
Inside one of the bunkers, taken from behind the breech and
showing where a shell came in on the right side of the gun, exploded and
killed the whole crew. |
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