Nearly 70 years ago, in the early hours of June 6th 1944, the liberation of Europe from the Nazis began. Operation Overlord started on what is now know as D-Day.

The first assaults were made from the sky.

In the East, British paratroopers were silently landed by glider adjacent to the key strategic bridges at Raneville. The brief, yet intense, battle for what is now know as Pegasus bridge was a total success with the defending force neutralised quickly and the bridges were captured intact. Today the original bridge is preserved as the centre piece of a fantastic museum that tells the story of that phenomenal moment in history. As our route took us across the new bridge, that sits on the exact site of the old one, we just had to look in!

Bullet holes and scars, a battle was fought and men died here.>

The new bridge.>

In the West, American Troops from the now famous 101st Airborne parachuted in between Saint Martin-De-Varreville and Pouppeville at 00:48 hours the night before the invasion…. to agitate the Germans and to confuse them by raiding their barrack’s and gunnery positions to make them believe that the main assault was coming from the air. Maybe I can tell you some more about that on another post.

In the meantime, I’ll catch you later.
Dookes

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