British and Canadian Normandy D Day beaches full day tour

The British and Canadian beaches were on the eastern side and closer to Bayeux and Caen, also Carpiquet airport. Gold beach is where the artificial harbours were installed and still there. To the east of the harbours is where the main force landed and some savage fighting took place, Stan Hollis became the only man to win the VC on D Day here. Juno Beach is where the Canadians landed, on the mouth of the River Courseulles, they had a hard struggle from day one, high casualties on landing, the fight for Carpiquet, Caen, and Falaise. On the extreme east is sword beach, although there were plans for further landings east of the Orne river in case of problems. Sword is where Lord Lovat and his commandos landed. making their way to Ouistreham with strong German resistance and linking up with the airborne troops at Pegasus Bridge. The Pegasus museum houses the original bridge among many other incredible relics. The impressive battery at Merville has over time become a museum in its own right with its own story.

This tour begins at Pegasus Bridge which was taken by Maj John Howard, in the early hours of June 6th. Moving on to the 'Merville Battery' provisionally taken by Lieutenant Colonel Otway's 9th Bn Parachute Regiment on D Day, with only about a quarter of his Glider force and equipment available. Heading northwest to sword beach, objective is to take back the Casino of Ouistreham, a strong German strongpoint. and to join the troops of the 6th Airborne Div. Continuing along the coast we stop at Juno beach where the Canadian 1st division landed and headed towards Carpiquet Airport, they took the most ground on day 1. Afterwards we arrive at Gold Beach and Arromanches, which still has many of the 'Mulberry harbours' in place, at low tide, it is possible to walk out to some. We finish the day at Port en Bessin, link up of the British and American forces and site of the trans manche fuel pipe that fed the allied forces. As we drive I will give ongoing talks on both local and WWII history of each section.