D-day

Today we headed along the Normandy beaches – the sites of the D-day landings. There were loads of different routes to follow with museums doted along the way. We drove all along the coast but picked two museums to visit – one at Juno beach – the site of the Canadian landings and one at the end of Gold beach at a place called ---- where the British built an artificial port to enable them to ship in supplies to support the Allied invasion. The weather was a bit grim so we kept the beach walking to a minimum.

The Canadian museum at Juno beach was a fantastic exhibition that took you through both the D-day landings and the efforts of the Canadians during WW II. The death toll was 45,000 of the 1 million who landed. With the strong winds blowing the light rain in our faces you only had to blur your eyes slightly and could imagine the screams of dieing men, the bullets flying, mixed with the fear and adrenalin that would have driven them forward. Incredible that humans could do this to other humans all for the sake of what?

Gold beach represents an amazing engineering feat. One of the prob’s with invading Normandy is that you need a port for supplies and, the Germans knowing this had barricaded the ports very well. So Winstone C came up with the idea of building a port in Britain and floating it in parts across the channel. Within 10 days of the 6 June they had built a fully operating port with a breakwater and floating pontoon wharfs. Bits of it still remain.

Tonight we are back in the lap of luxury, a real camp ground with warm showers and washing machines. So the stench is gone and we all smell as sweet as roses.