RHH's photos with the keyword: ww2

Here is the view to the east from Pointe du Hoc. Pointe du Hoc is promontory on the Normandy coast overlooking the beaches that on D-Day, June 6, 1944, were code-named Omaha. The American landings there were stalled until the Army Rangers scaled the cliffs and took the fortifications there.

This is one of the gun emplacements near Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach taken by the Army Rangers on D-Day, June 6, 1944. It stands on the cliffs above Omaha Beach and was a part of the defense that delayed the landings until the Army Rangers scaled the cliffs and took the fortifications there.

Also know as the Mad Piper of Sword Beach, Billy Millin was personal piper to Lord Lovat, commander of the British 1st Special Service Brigade. Of Scottish descent but born in Canada, he had joined the British Army and took part in the D-Day landings, piping his Brigade ashore at Sword Beach and then again piping them across Pegasus Bridge where they joined up with the airborne troops. The statue commemorating his bravery is near Sword Beach between Ouistreham and Lion-sur-Mer.

The Merville Battery was an important German fortification and part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. It is now part of a large World War II museum.

One of our reasons for visiting Normandy was to see the D-Day sites, a very appropriate time to do so since it was the eightieth anniversary of the landings on June 6, 1944. After a weekend in the Etretat area we drove down and started our tour in Benouville at the Pegasus Bridge, a vital link over the Caen Canal, taken by British airborne troops early on D-Day. Benouville was the first French village liberated on D-Day. We had coffee at the nearby Cafe Gondree and then explored the area. We learned that the present bridge is a replacement and saw the original bridge on the grounds of a nearby museum.

One of the reasons for visiting Normandy was to see the D-Day sites and our visit took place, fittingly, on the eightieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. The Cafe Gondree and the nearby Pegasus Bridge were the location of the first combat on D-Day and Benouville, the village in which the cafe is located, was the first village liberated by the Thirteenth British Paratroop Battalion. We had coffee at the cafe before exploring the village and the nearby memorial and museum.

The day after arriving in France and checking into our guest house in Le Tilleul we visited Etretat and walked the cliffs to the Antifer Lighthouse. This was where we started, the beach at Etretat looking toward the Porte d'Aval with an old German Bunker from World War 2 in the foreground.