An unbelievable sight……
So this has been on the list, well ok this whole coast line is something I fancy exploring, but given just one night before our ferry back to the real world, my fascination with poured concert has chosen our first and definitely not our last stop on this history tour !
The little town called Arromanches-les-Bains, or more famously know by its code named -Gold Beach.
It’s an incredible combination of natural beauty and history
And from the amazing free motorhome aire, we are seconds away from the beach and sea, thankfully for us motorhomes the area next to the tennis club has been given over to a free stop over (N49.339050 W0.625390).
We wanted to hit the ruins at low tide so we could really explore them, so we headed straight back out to the beach…
The whole bay is still lined with the ruins….
I was very glad we did because within a few hours, a lot of the ruins were submerged again and the rest had enough water around them that we wouldn’t have been able to see them up close.
The D-Day landing sites were chosen for surprise!
The Allies wanted locations that the Germans wouldn’t expect them. Since ports and harbours were the most valuable, the Germans had those heavily fortified.
The Allied leaders knew that they would have to find a way to supply the troops that landed on the beaches until they could capture one of the harbours on the French coast.
In order to do this, they devised the ingenious mulberry harbours – artificial ports that could be used to offload reinforcements and supplies.
Giant concrete breakwaters were towed across the English Channel and sunk along with some decommissioned ships to protect the harbour, and floating docks and bridges that were designed to rise and fall with the tide were installed and used to offload thousands of men and supplies for the growing Allied landing force.
They were supposed to be built at Omaha and Gold beaches, but a bad storm blew through before they could be finished, and the one at Omaha was thoroughly destroyed that the Allies abandoned it only the Gold Beach mulberry was used.
Around the back of the museum, we found a piece of one of the mulberry bridges that had been moved to replace a damaged bridge over a nearby river for over 50 years. After that bridge was decommissioned in 2004, the span was returned to Arromanches-les-Bains to be displayed.
So what Arromanches-les-Bains has done for us is light a spark, that we need to visit some more WW2 sites and learn more about the way our Freedom was secured all thoses years ago
Paul.