Normandy 2004

Our first trip in the new era of what had jokingly become known as The North Manchester & District Battlefield Society (shortly abbreviated to the title of this blog) would be spanning the 60th Anniversary of the invasion and promised to be a stellar affair. Heads of state from around the world were converging on the Normandy countryside, and more importantly, veterans were making a pilgrimage to honour fallen friends, foes and comrades. We flew into Paris and after a series of mishaps were unable to hire a car. The quick thinking and French speaking amongst our group, or Gerry to name him, suggested we take the train and hire a car once in Normandy. Our base for the holiday was Saint-Lo, a small town inland from the beaches, but nonetheless hugely affected by the invasion. As we arrived a party of American veterans were over heard saying, “last time I was here, we were bombing the shit out of the place!”. And evident it was too. Saint-Lo isn’t a typically pretty town, but I guess it was before the bombardment going off the few remnants we were to see in the coming days.

Our second (planned) stop was to be the city of Caen. Events would overtake that and we also spent a night in the tiny village of Canisy, about five miles to the southwest of Saint-Lo. Our three bases were poles apart, Caen has a population of over 100,000, Saint-Lo 20,000 and Canisy just over 1000.

The battle for Normandy is very well known, and very well written on; much better than I ever could hope to, but the generalities of it saw over a million men land in a variety of ways throughout the summer months of 1944 to oppose the German forces of Gerd von Runstedt and Erwin Rommel and his much vaunted Atlantic Wall. Commonly referred to as D-Day, the landings were actually called Operation Neptune, and the whole invasion, Operation Overlord. D-Day is a military term for any battle or operation. It is planned for D-Day and H-Hour to avoid intelligence slips or when the precise timings aren’t yet fixed. The first recorded instance of its use was during the St. Mihiel offensive by the US army in WW1. See our Verdun trip for more on this battle.

We saw many sights and had many memorable moments both moving and funny. Our trips tend to be academically inclined during the day, and beer inclined of an evening. A happy mix I’m a very big fan of! To see the pictures of the trip and read much more about where we went and what we saw, click here.