Description

Learn about D-Day and the tasks given to the British army during the Normandy invasion.

Transcript

Learn About D-Day Part 3/11 Our first destination on this tour actually takes us in land to the town of Colleville at the eastern end of the D-Day beaches. Although we’re oversimplifying the first duties of Operation Overlord called for an airborne attack to secure the area of the beachheads and neutralize as much of the ordinance targeted on the shoreline as possible. At the eastern end of the designated landing zone—which was on the heavy German occupation. North of this city there were two strategically important bridges crossing the Caen Canal into the river Orne respectively. It was the task of the British 6th airborne division to catch of these bridges and preserve them intact as they would be critical to the adventure breakout from the beachhead. Ever since D-Day, this has been popularly known as Pegasus Bridge because of the proud flying horse senior of the British Airborne forces who won the first victory of the Normandy campaign. Wooden Hoarse are gliders were towed across the channel by Halifax Bomber tags when on target were on hitch to descend silently into the blackout French country side. Reload a grand this water logs today when the gliders landed here to set D-Day in motion this was just an ordinary field. The three lectern-like memorials marked the points where Major John Howard’s gliders landed perfectly on target enabling a swift capture of Pegasus bridge with the element of surprise definitely a bonus for the British soldiers. For those who come to visit Pegasus Bridge today it’s been rather a contentious issue that this is not the war time original. As the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings drew near the authorities announced to their intention to replace the bridge. Furious protests followed as for the many veterans. Pegasus bridge was a lasting symbol of the bravery and sacrifice made by so many to liberate fronts and to defeat Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, the bullet marked original walls this mantled in November 1993 with completion of the new bridge in April ‘94. Fortunately, the design of the bridge is pretty much identical to the old one. It’s just a little wider and so you do get a fairly accurate idea of how this place would have looked in June 1944. While here, its well worth searching out the Pegasus bridge café which was in fact the first building in France to be liberated from German Occupation. The family concern that Café Gondree has its own way of coping with the invading Germans. George Gondree buried 99 bottles of champagne in the garden rather than have it consumed by the enemy but immediately dug it up to celebrate the arrival of the allied forces. The café quickly became a veritable home from home full thousands of x service men with a grateful host continuing to offer them free champagne. It’s sad that although the café has remained in family ownership a modern day feud between the surviving relatives has resulted in periods of enforced closure but things are looking positive at the moment for this remarkable building and all the memories it holds of June 1944.