D-Day Landings in Normandy

Today is spent looking at the British and Canadian involvement on 6 June 1944. We will visit key D-Day sites including Pegasus Bridge and the Pegasus Memorial Museum to look at the glider landings and first actions on D-Day, and then see the graves in Ranville War Cemetery. We later move on to Sword, Juno and Gold beaches, visiting the scenes of the British and Canadian landings, also seeing the new British Normandy Memorial. We end the day at Arromanches to look at the story of the Mulberry Harbour, the artificial port that was key to Allied success.

We begin at the moving Normandy American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, and then visit the Overlord Museum, one of the best in Normandy. Later we go along the Omaha Beach area itself seeing memorials and bunkers, uncovering the real story of Saving Private Ryan and the reality of ‘Bloody Omaha’. With lunchtime in Sainte-Mère-Église, we then look at the Airborne operations around the town including the story of the ‘Band of Brothers’ and visit our final D-Day beach – Utah Beach. Here we see where some of the most successful landings on D-Day took place. We then visit the German Cemetery at La Cambe and finish our day at Bayeux War Cemetery.

We move beyond D-Day and look at the fighting in the Bocage countryside following a route via Tilly-sur-Seulles and Fontenay le Pesnel. Going along the ‘Scottish Corridor’, we visit Hill 112 with its Churchill Tank and Memorial Park. After lunchtime in Falaise, we see the ‘Corridor of Death’, used by the Germans to make their retreat in August 1944. At Mont Ormel we remember the Polish troops who fought here and end at Vimoutiers seeing a rare example of an original German Tiger Tank, abandoned nearby in 1944.

Return home.