D-DAY TOURS Half Day Tours : MORNING Tour B-1 Gold Beach
TOUR B-1 : GOLD BEACH SECTOR (Morning Tour)
Re-live in a few hours the D-Day landing of the british troops on Gold Beach, North East of Bayeux. They were the first british soldiers to land in Normandy on June 6th 1944 at 7.25am. At the end of this crucial day, most of the objectives of those 25 000 soldiers were successfully done, such as the liberation of Arromanches, the connection with the canadian forces landed on Juno to the East, and finally the approach of Bayeux and the precious National Road 13. You will discover in a few kilometer distance various aspects of the Battle of Normandy with the unique and almost intact german gun battery of Longues-sur-Mer, but also one of the most ambitious projects in the military history through the artificial harbour of Arromanches.
LONGUES-SUR-MER gun battery :
The battery at Longues-sur-Mer was composed of four guns of 152 mm calibre, capable of firing shells to a maximum range of 15 miles, allowing them to reach not only Omaha Beach, 8 miles to the west, but also the British landing zone of Gold Beach, 5 miles to the east. The Allies had tried to knock out this battery with aerial bombardment leading up to the landings, but it was not until D-Day itself that the guns were finally silenced by the off-shore Allied Navies. The damage inflicted on the guns themselves can still clearly be seen today. The battery at Longues-sur-Mer is the only gun battery in France that still has the original cannon in the bunkers, untouched since 1944.
ARROMANCHES :
Realising the difficulties of capturing intact an enemy held port, the British, under Churchill, opted for the mammoth task of building two artificial harbours, one for the American 1st Army at Omaha, the other for the British 2nd Army at Gold. However, following a very severe storm lasting from the 19th to the 22nd of June 1944 which completely destroyed the American Mulberry harbour, the British artificial port at Arromanches was left alone as the main supplied channel for all of the equipment needed by the Allied soldiers fighting in Normandy.
GOLD BEACH ASNELLES :
The picturesque and peaceful seaside resort of Asnelles went through some disturbing events in the morning of D-Day observing the first British soldiers landing on the Normandy coast at 7.25 am. The fightings were pitiless until the definitive liberation of the village around noon. Unfortunately, the ennemy really settled in Normandy and the british troops still had to neutralise the different coastal fortifications such as Le Hamel to go on the paths of liberty.
THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH BAYEUX MILITARY CEMETERY :
The first large town liberated after D-Day, Bayeux holds the largest British Cemetery in Normandy, with a total of 4648 graves of which 466 are Germans. Situated beside the By-pass, the road constructed by the British engineers to relieve traffic congestion in the town, the Memorial to the 1808 Commonwealth soldiers who have no known grave is directly opposite the cemetery. The Latin inscription on the Memorial to the Missing reminds visitors that the British who liberated Normandy in 1944 were the same ones invaded by William the Conqueror nine centuries earlier.
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