MMC's D-Day beaches - a partwork

Chophawk, Powderhound - thank you!

Some more...

The battery was finally taken by land troops - and a story of quite exceptional bravery:

From www.saak.nl:

Again, like so many of the Normandy sites, Azeville is incredibly peaceful now.



And without doing a bit of background reading, it’s hard to get a sense of all that happened here.



But if you know where to look - and what you’re looking at - the landscape history becomes very plain indeed:

Courseulles sur Mer

By the time I’d finished at Azeville, I was on a bit of a mission to meet up with James again at Courseulles. He’d been blatting round the twisties in the Suisse Normande, and we’d agreed to rendezvous for a late lunch in Courseulles.
James was, of course, there first. I pulled up, de-kitted and enjoyed a well-deserved Perrier Menthe.







It seemed there were other ways to get around in Courseulles:







And seeing this made me realise that you don’t need a sodding great 1100 to go touring. Go on what you have - it’s the journey that matters.



Courseulles was just gorgeous in the sunshine:



James took more photos:



And so did I:



Spotted a splendid old Guzzi - another one:



Always liked these.

And, this time, a memorial to the Canadian troops who came ashore between Graye-sur-Mer and St. Aubin-sur-Mer on 6 June. Another 150,000 Canadian troops over the next few months followed them, along with more than 1,000 tons of kit per day for the next six weeks.



As ever, we stopped for a little bite - in a gorgeous café just behind the seafront:



Just a smackerel:



And the obligatory menthe.

James looked pretty pleased with life:



And, I have to say, I was pretty pleased about it too. How could you not be? 32 degrees, brilliant sunshine, superb roads, excellent company, cracking good food - and bikes to ride. How do I get paid to do this?

Have an Aunt that lost a brother in WWII. Left behind wife and 2 kids. He was 20 yrs old at Normandy. After 65 years my Aunt has been the only family member to finally make it to the cemetery a few yrs ago to find his grave marker and show her respects.

I will be showing this 86 yr old aunt your report. Some pics that the average tourist would probably never see. Great report.

Thanks again for sharing.
LnC

Thank you, Lewis. I really hope she likes what I've written. It's impossible, even having seen where it all happened, to get any idea of what really went on. He must have been one hell of a brave man, along with a great many other brave men.

Seems appropriate to post the last part now...

Heading back

Looking back at the weekend, it would be all too easy to slip into cliche - to do a cheap contrast of the peace with the war. “Wasn’t it all so wonderful and peaceful - and wasn’t it like that because of the men who went through hell to make it that way?” A bit of schmalz to add some depth to the story. But I was profoundly affected by what I read and saw.

It’s incredibly easy to be cynical. It’s the corrosive epidemic of the twenty-first century. Everything has another motive, nothing is what it seems. We’re all out for ourselves and devil take the hindmost. There’s little sense of honour - only self-interest and self-serving. And, despite a fascination with military history that’s been with me as long as I can remember, I can still see very little that’s honourable in killing another man.

And, at the risk of veering into metahistory, the sun would still have shone on Courseulles and Bayeux whether Hitler had lost or won. And, if he’d won, the chances of his retaining power and absolute dictatorship were slim - tyrants seldom last. There had already been three attempts on his life. Soon, one would succeed.

But one needs to separate the political from the military - and the military strategy from the actions of the individuals who made up the platoons, regiments and corps. The politicians get their name in the history books - but the men who do their bidding, who fight and die, seldom do. There is not the smallest crumb of doubt that, on D-Day, there were thousands of heroes who deserved to have their place recorded in history.

Some of them did. Although only their names - not their stories in all their depth and complexity.


These men were heroes just for daring to run from a landing craft, wade through the sea and crawl their way, inch by terrifying inch, up a beach under a blizzard of machine gun fire.

As I walked around bunkers, up beaches and through bullet-marked town squares, I found myself mentally testing my own courage against the men I read about. And failing. I could not have done what they did. Their heroism was in fighting for what they believed was right - and, perhaps more so - for the comrades who fought alongside them.

I read story after story of men who did the impossible because they cared about the men they’d trained, traveled and marched with. And that, to me, makes them heroes. Not because of the cause they fought for, not the countries they died for - but simply for each man counting his life less than that of the man he stood beside.


Back on the ferry we met up with the same couple from Winchester who’d been touring on their Ducati. What a beautiful bike.


And it’s always good to be on the bike and so on the boat first - you can get a coffee and lean on the rail as you pull away:





Finally, after Portsmouth, the nice people at Border Control (and they were too), and a schlep up the A34, back to Bampton - and a little reminder of the weekend:

Calvados. Superb. Looking forward to the next trip over - there’s a LOT more to see yet, and a certain café in Bayeux to visit with the Ural

Very cool indeed!

Glad you enjoyed it Michael.