Some more photos of the Longues-sur-Mer battery above Omaha and Gold Beaches.
The casemates and gun emplacements remain largely intact, providing a tangible reminder of the intense fighting that took place on the beaches of Normandy during the Allied invasion.
The guns could shoot over 20km, providing a real threat to the offshore allied ships.
Inside one of the gun casemates.
Like most D-Day sights, its open at no cost to the public.
Some of the exhibits inside the Memorial Museum. There are many war museums in Normandy, but this one stands out with some excellent exhibits.
These giant coltrops are still found all over Normandy. They are meant to literally stop tanks in their tracks.
And some anti-aircraft artillery.
These are just a few of the tanks at the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy In Bayeux. I’ll be sharing some photos inside the museum in later posts, but in the meantime here are a few of the tanks on display in the gardens.
Churchill Crocodile flame throwing tank. It was capable of throwing flames to over 100m distance.
Churchill Crocodile flame throwing tank – from the side
M10 tank destroyer, the workhorse tank of the USA army in World War 2.
The very rare Char Grizzly M4A5 Canadian Tank, basically a Canadian Sherman tank. They stopped producing them when they realised the the USA production would be sufficient for the Normandy landings.
The Longues-sur-Mer battery are some of the many guns forming the Atlantic Wall from World War 2. The guns are 5inch Naval guns repurposed as coastal defence, and the roof and walls are over 2m thick. This particular battery had three guns, all of which are still in place (needless to say none of them work).
The cemetery covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 people, most of who died during the D-Day landings, as well as various memorials to 1557 people missing in action. It’s a somber and reflective place, somewhere you need to pause and think.
This year will be 80 years since the D-Day landing.
Where do you start with somebody like General Gavin? He did som much, known as the “Jumping General” due to his habit of jumping with his paratroopers, in particular he jumped with the 82nd Airborne Division on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), a division he commanded just 2 months later. In particular, they secured the area around Sainte-Mère-Église near Utah Beach.
He then went on to serve at Market Garden and Battle of the Bulge. He bio is fascinating, and is worth reading.
This photo is taking at the D-Day landing site, just outside Sainte-Mère-Église.
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