On a coastline dotted with D-Day museums, it’s easy to assume that the America Gold Beach Museum in Ver-sur-Mer, Normandy, is dedicated to the events on June 6 1944… but it isn’t, exclusively. Musée America Gold Beach reminds us that before the British Army’s XXX Corps landed...
The coastal artillery battery at Longues-sur-Mer is one of the key Normandy D-Day battlefield sites to visit, for a number of reasons – it’s in the midst of the landing beaches (between Omaha and Gold); it’s an open site, free to visit; and it still has its...
The Hillman bunkers, on a hill 3.7 kms inland from Sword beach, were German command bunkers. Now they are a memorial and battlefield site. The site was the regimental headquarters for Colonel Ludwig Krug, commander of the 736th Grenadier Regiment. From here he controlled all the infantry...
My expectations of the Grand Bunker Musée (museum) were not all that high when I eventually got around to visiting, but it turned out to be really interesting. I originally thought the 16m tall concrete bunker, which has been restored to its 1944 condition, was a flak...
The Juno Beach Centre is different to many of the other museums & memorials on the Normandy coast in that its focus is not so much on ‘what happened here?’, as ‘how and why were the Canadians here?’. “The goal is not to be too technical,” says...
The Airborne Museum at Sainte-Mère-Eglise is a ‘must see’ for those touring Normandy, and it’s usually one of the first or last stops on a tour of the Normandy beaches because it’s out there on the western flank, which is exactly why the US airborne forces set...
We reviewed the German battery at Grandcamp Maisy in Normandy, last year (Oct 2018), but I was in the neighbourhood in April, so I stopped by to have a look for myself. I spent a happy 40 minutes chatting to Dan Sterne, the owner (Gary)’s son, and...
The German battery at Azeville north west of Utah Beach was supposed to be taken on D-Day itself. It was still firing on Utah on the morning of D+3 (9th June). Azeville is a little different to other batteries in Normandy in that you spend the first...
You can’t miss the Utah Beach Museum. It’s right there, woven into the sand dunes that, along with the Germans, defended the shore in 1944. In fact it’s partially built on the remains of German bunkers. The History Utah beach was one the ‘extra’ beaches, added to...
The biggest surprise about the German military cemetery at La Cambe is its size – it is small (16.5 acres), given that 21,222 German soldiers are buried here. That’s much smaller than the American Cemetery at Colville (172.5 acres), which has 9,380 graves. The reason is that,...
Pointe du Hoc is the famous cliff promontory at the western edge of Omaha beach, that was heroically scaled and overrun by US Rangers on the morning of D-Day, June 6th 1944. Now it is a battlefield and memorial site. The History D-Day planners were particularly worried...
The Overlord Museum is one of the primary museums on the Normandy coast and popular with visitors because it sits next door to the American Cemetery, which is pretty much a ‘must-see’ for most visitors to the area. It is not a large museum but it packs...
Set back behind the Tudor bulk of Southsea Castle, just east of Portsmouth harbour, the D-Day Story Museum does what it says on the label – showcases the events leading up to the Allied invasion of France on June 6 1944, codenamed Operation Overlord. There’s been a...
West of Pointe du Hoc on the Calvados coast, Maisy Battery is a WW2 German coastal defence gun battery which housed 350 men in the run up to D-Day and had howitzers trained on both Omaha Beach to the east and Utah to the west. Begun in...
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