Tag Archives: parachutists

Monday 20th August 2018 – SLEEPING ON THE SOFA …

… is quite comfortable, which is why I chose this sofa anyway, but for some reason last night I couldn’t drop off to sleep. And when I eventually did, I was awake quite early and couldn’t go back to sleep.

So I had my medication and then set out everything for breakfast. The muesli that I make myself went down very well, as did the bread from LIDL. Good stuff that, I have to say.

When we were ready and organised, I made some sandwiches and then we set off on our travels.

Our destination for today was Utah Beach.

On the north-eastern shore of Normandy, it was the most westerly of the landing beaches on D-Dau. Despite many problems and issues regarding the arrival of troops, many of whom were offloaded at the wrong place, the beach was quickly captured.

Of the 21,000 soldiers who landed here, just 197 of them were lost. It was one of the more successful landings.

The aim of the landing here was to seal off the Cotentin Peninsula from German reinforcements and to move on quickly to capture Cherbourg and all of its port installations.

Unfortunately, the American soldiers were so over-trained that they were very devoid of individual initiative. So when they were held up, they just waited for someone else to come up with a new plan instead of finding another way around.

As a result, it took three weeks rather than three days to capture the port, and the Germans had used the time profitably to destroy the port installations.

At a certain prominent point on the shore there were a few heavy concrete defensive strongpoints. A combination of air strikes, assault troops and naval gunfire saw them off.

This point here is one of the most prominent points on the coastline, and the shattered reinforced concrete scattered around here makes me wonder whether or not this was the site of one of these strongpoints.

Whatever it is, it’s been well-and-truly seen off.

A good way offshore were a couple of objects that looked quite interesting. I couldn’t make out what they were so I took a photo with the telephoto lens and enlarged it.

It’s still not very clear as to what it might be, but it looks suspiciously like the wreckage of some kind of ship. And the boat around it might indicate the presence of divers.

Of course, it could equally well be a bizarre rock formation. I shall have to wait until I can find a kayak so that I can go out there for a proper look.

There’s a museum here too. This contains all kinds of relics uncovered from the battlefield, discovered by local residents or donated by former soldiers who served here.

But this is more like the kind of thing that I would find interesting. If ever I buy my own island I would need something like this.

Caliburn would fit quite nicely on it and I could quite easily go across to the mainland and the shops in it. It would make life easy.

Mitchell Marauder B-26 bombers were used by the United Nations to bomb the German defences.

One of these planes and its captain was quite famous due to his exploits but was shot down a short while later. Parts of his aeroplane were recovered subsequently and are displayed here

I could have an enormous amount of fun with this 18-cylinder twin-row radial engine.

While we were wandering around I ate my butties, and then we set off again.

The key to the assualt on Cherbourg was the town of St Mere-Eglise.

With the land behind the beach being low-lying, the Germans had flooded everywhere to inhibit any invasion. The roads however are raised up on causeways and these all radiate out from the town, so the capture of the town was quite important.

A squadron of paratroopers were parachuted into the area early in the morning to seize the town.

Of course, the parachute drop went wrong and the soldiers ended up being scattered all over the countryside.

One unfortunate soldier landed on the roof of the church and as he slid down, his parachute was caught on one of the gargoyles.

And here he dangled while a battle was ranging right below him. Eventually the Germans spotted him and rescued him, but he subsequently escaped when the town was captured.

We had a coffee and then we set off back home for tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Liz and I had made some vegan burgers a while ago. And so for tea we had burgers in baps with potatoes and vegetables. And they were delicious too.

Hans is as much a film buff as I am, and so we sat down and watched one of the Inspector Hornleigh films. I still think that these films are really well ahead of their time considering that they date from the late 1930s.

And so, being thoroughly exhausted, I settled down on the sofa. I hope that I have a better night tonight.

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Sunday 30th July 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I had a proper Sunday?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Good Old Days Sunday was a Day Of Rest. And not only that, but a lie-in too. And there were some Sundays when I didn’t show before midday too.

Those days seemed to be long-gone, didn’t they? Several times just recently I’ve been wide away on a Sunday long before my usual rising time of 07:00.

So what happened today that I was asleep until … errr … 10:13?

And a good sleep too. I was away on my travels too – carrying on from yesterday round here somewhere outside, with with three other people. All of them pseudo-priests, and were in fact three young lads whom I knew when I worked in Brussels.

10:15 in here, breakfast over by 10:45, and then a sit-down for an hour or so. Far too late to go for the baguette at the magasin de presse so I reckoned a quick stroll down the hill.

But what the …! What’s going on here?

Hordes of people clinging to various vantage points looking at what looks like a ship blowing off thousands of gallons of water for some reason or another.

I had to go and check that out. Maybe it was a shipwreck or something (I’d seen a ship on the horizon in the dark last night);

But I didn’t get too far down the hill though.

The Marité might not have been at home (she’s been gone for a few days now) but lots of other people were there on her quayside.

Some kind of military vehicle display I reckon.

So cancel the baguette I nipped down to the fritkot for a bag of chips and threw all of my plans into the air.

Some kind of military vehicle display it was indeed.

Probably about 20 wartime vehicles all told, of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Tanks, jeeps, lorries and motorcycles, and so I had a good wander around.

Quite a lot of stuff that I would have happily taken home in a heartbeat.

But pride of place anywhere, anyhow and on any occasion has to go to the magnificent Welbike.

Designed to fold to fit into a parachute supply container, these were used by paratroopers and resistance fighters all over Occupied Europe.

A brilliant idea, but the Villiers 98cc two-stroke engine was hopelessly underpowered for the rough terrain and many were abandoned by the paratroopers as an unnecessary encumbrance once the War opened out.

Naturally, this part of France, not too far from the D-Day beaches, would be where you might expect the odd one or two to surface every now and again.

From there I wandered off down the quayside and onto the harbour mole to see if I could see anything that was going on where that ship might have been.

It had cleared off, so it can’t have been a shipwreck, but nevertheless I had a superb view of the Iles de Chausey and so I gave the new zoom lens a run-out.

And the verdict? Not as good as I would have liked, but I’ve had much worse than this. And it IS automatic focus.

But it did occur to me that I’ve not taken a photograph of the port of Granville from this vantage point yet.

I was over there where that black triangle was the other day, and you can see one of the boats that go to the Iles de Chausey in the bay next to it.

To the left of centre are the lock gates for the commercial port. It’s a tidal basin so when the tide is going out they close the gates so that the water stays in and the big ships like Pluto and Victress can stay afloat.

I waled all the way back to here via the Coastal Path. First time that I’d done that.

There’s a good view right back across the port and the town from up here, and you can see the ship repairer’s yard too. They have a novel way of hoisting ships out of the water.

So I carried on back here but couldn’t see anything to suggest what that ship or whatever it was might have been doing.

And had a rest when I arrived. It was a long walk back here – 4.8 kilomtres in fact according to the Fitbit.

Tea was pizza tonight (well, it IS Sunday) and I had a chat with Liz on the internet. Now another walk and an early night. Start again at 07:00 tomorrow.

We have church bells going off and a choir singing in the vicinity tonight.

Friday 2nd June 2017 – HAVING A RIDE …

… on Rosie the Crocodile – and just look at those big scary teeth!

While I was out doing my shopping his morning I had a phone call from Liz. “We’re all going down to the beach at Montmartin sur Mer this afternoon after lunch. Would you like to come with us?”

Do bears go for picnics in the woods?

Last night was a really bad night for me. I was still wide awake at 04:35 and wasn’t sure that I would ever go off to sleep. But I must have done, and crawling out of bed at 07:00 wasn’t very easy either as you might expect.

A shower brought me round somewhat, and then I noticed a little calamity – something along the lines of the fact that I seem to have run out of clothes again. I had a good rummage around and managed to find a few clean things but I really shall have to go to the launderette next week. I have actually found one in the town by the harbour.

Once I’d organised myself I headed off to the shops. Going on a Saturday morning, is, as we know, a waste of time. I went to the Bio shop for some vegan sausages (I fancy sausages, beans and chips), to Mr Bricolage for some fittings for the curtain rail in the bedroom, and to LeClerc for the groceries and some diesel.

But I’m going to have to think again about the bio shop. The stuff in there is quite expensive, the choice isn’t up to much and the staff is quite surly in there. I shall have to see what I can find in the way of mail-order outlets once my bank account is FINALLY organised.

And we weren’t alone on the streets either. By one of the roundabouts was a police motorcycle patrol who was interested in vehicles entering the town. Not quite sure why, but he took a note of Caliburn’s registration number.

After lunch I headed for the beach at Montmartin sur Mer.

While I was on my way up the coast I was overflown by a flight of four aeroplanes. Big four-engines French Army transport planes of some description – I’ve no idea at all what they might be.

But when I was walking down onto the beach after parking up Caliburn they flew back again, directly overhead. This gave me a good opportunity to take a close-up photograph of them as they roared by. They were certainly impressive – and noisy. Just imagine what 500 Avro Lancasters going by overhead must have sounded like. No wonder you needed an intercom

At the end of the beach, away in the distance, they performed a U-turn and flew back off at a tangent somewhere inland. They were clearly up to something, that’s for sure.

As an aside, it was explained to me later that there’s to be a drop of parachutists over the Invasion Beaches to commemmorate D-Day in a couple of days time. I reckon that these would be just the type of aircraft to carry paratroopers and so maybe they are having a quiet rehearsal of low-flying over the beach.

While I had the camera out – do you see that lighthouse across there? That’s the lighthouse on the Pointe d’Agon where we were the other day. We’re actually at the mouth of the River Sienne (not the Seine) and the currents offshore are gradually shifting the mouth southwards by that huge sand bar over there.

Built in 1856 on the site of an old fortress washed away in 1776 by an exceptionally high tide, the lighthouse is now a good kilometre from the mouth of the river today.

We had fun building Rosie the Crocodile and then the lack of sleep last night took hold. I can’t think of any finer way to spend a sunny afternoon out at the beach than by having a good crash-out for a couple of hours. I was well away. And everyone was laughing because I’d put my cap on my face to protect my face from the sun, and as I was breathing in and out, my cap was going up and down like in one of these cartoon films.

Liz and Terry very kindly invited me back for tea and we all had a really good chat, as Kate, Darren and the kids are going home tomorrow. And then , I came home.

It had been a long day and so it wasn’t any longer that I hung about before going to bed. I have no plans for tomorrow so we’ll see what that day brings.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: parachutists

Monday 20th August 2018 – SLEEPING ON THE SOFA …

Sunday 30th July 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

Friday 2nd June 2017 – HAVING A RIDE …

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