This is the new monument dedicated to the men of ‘The Mighty Eighth’ in Normandy. The set of four life-size bronze statues of medal-awarded USAAF Airmen was unveiled at the La Fière Memorial Park near Sainte-Mère-Eglise on 5th June. The four airmen (L-R) are Staff Sgt. Maynard...
The word is, Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras is working on a new WW2 movie titled Pressure, which focuses on the go/no-go decision that Gen Eisenhower had to make on the eve of D-Day and the role that meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg played in that famous decision....
The Omaha Beach Memorial Museum (Musée Mémorial d’Omaha Beach), focuses on the D-Day landings at Omaha and Pointe du Hoc. It’s not a particularly large museum (1400m²) but it is well laid out and has some interesting artefacts, documents and photos. It’s location, halfway up the Les...
For those who have been wondering what will happen to the 1,475 ‘Standing with Giants’ silhouettes of World War 2 military personnel currently standing on the slope in front of the British Normandy Memorial, Normandy*; the answer is, they will move to the National Trust’s Stowe Gardens...
It’s proper name, in French, is La Musée de la Percée du Bocage, which they themselves translate into the ‘British Breakout from Normandy Museum’. In our guidebook, we call it the ‘Bocage Breakout Museum’, which I think is a simpler name. The museum, which celebrates its 30th...
The D-Day Omaha Museum is a small private museum packed with military items, uniforms and equipment that were gathered over a 50 year period by Michel Brissard, an enthusiastic military history collector who was born in 1945, the year WW2 ended. Now, the museum is run by...
The Normandy Victory Museum, sub-titled the Musée de la Bataille des Haies (Battle of the Hedgerows Museum) is quite a large museum (2,000 m²) and is definitely worth a visit, especially around lunchtime, because it also has a large brasserie restaurant split into a bistro and pizzeria....
The newly opened D-Day Collins Museum recreates General Joseph Lawton Collins’ VII Corps headquarters at Chateau de Franquetot, in the actual building itself where he met more than once with Generals Omar Bradley, George Patton and Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower. And to give the...
Most people know that the famous airborne glider attack on Pegasus Bridge just after midnight on 6th June 1944 marked the start of D-Day, but I suspect many are a little confused about where exactly this dramatic action took place. At the east end of the landing...
The British Normandy Memorial lists the names of 22,442 servicemen & women serving under British command, who died in Normandy. It was conceived during the 71st D-Day Anniversary reunion in 2015, in a chance conversation between a British veteran, George Batts, and the BBC broadcaster Nicholas Witchell....
Arromanches-les-Bains is the site of the famous Mulberry B Artificial Harbour and home to the D-Day Landing Museum, known locally as the ‘Musée du Débarquement, Arromanches’, which focuses on the astounding piece of engineering that still dominates the seascape today. My last visit to the museum was...
The Radar Museum 1944 is on the site of the Germans’ largest radar station in the Calvados region of Normandy. The original top-secret site covered a huge 10 hectares on the plateau outside the town of Douvres*. However the museum and its bunkers cover only a small...
The WWII Tank Landing Craft, LCT 7074, a veteran of D-day, has finally made the journey from Portsmouth Naval Base to her new home on Southsea where she will be the newest addition to the D-Day Story museum. The newly renovated 59-metre long, 300-ton ship was moved...
Montormel*, or ‘Hill 262’ as it was known to the Allies, was the location where the ‘Falaise pocket’ was finally sealed by Polish and Canadian forces on 21 August 1944, trapping up to 50,000 German soldiers and marking the end of the Battle of Normandy. On this...
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