A fucking paratrooper 
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80 years ago tomorrow!
Feels like yesterday
It never happened. The alleged footage was filimed on Curracloe Strand by Steven Spielberg
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@glenshane reckons the whole thing could have been avoided if the Munich Agreement had been implemented, but sure the allies wouldn’t stick to it.
I’m reading Dominion at the moment with the premise being that the UK sign a treaty with Germany in 1940 instead of fighting. Not sure it’s a great outcome!
But sure if they had just abided by the treaty the whole thing could have been avoided and all those lives saved!
Alternate history books never end well, what would be the point otherwise
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Yeah. Poland and eastern Europe would never have had their freedom…
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Arrived in Cherbourg on Tues and drove down through Normandy. The place was choc a bloc with the commerations. Loads of old millitary vehicles on the roads with the stars and stripes quite prevelant. I wanted to stop off in one of the villages near Utah beach and see it all but was outvoted 5-1.
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You should have said there was crepes in the village 
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You’re way way too far east if you can smell Cologne.
I’m on a boat to Cherbourg myself in a couple of weeks. Haven’t floated yet the idea of myself and the two boys (3 & 5) popping into St Mere Elise or even a quick diversion to Bayeux. All about catching the right time!
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St Mere Eglise is a lovely little village on its own right and is well worth the stop off for lunch. There is a car park just outside the village with pay parking. Just off the main square there is a fine bakery (the French call them boulangeries) which sells nice sandwiches that you could sit in the square and eat, but it’s closed on Wednesdays. If you’ve pulled in off the road anyway a ten minute diversion to Utah Beach itself might be in order. The American cemetery at Colleville and the German Cemetery at La Cambe are also worth visiting. The German one is literally just off the main road and is, in its own way, the most fascinating of the lot.
The main cemetery at Bayeux is also very accessible. Just drive past it and there is a car park for a museum about 100 yards ahead on your left that you can use.well worth the visit.
I always leave time when I’m coming back to the ferry to visit some of these spots. You won’t regret it.
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Why is that ?
Nein.
A number of reasons. First because they lost the war, there is none of the air of “they died so you might be free” that you get in the other cemeteries. They died and that was that. Ultimately there was no purpose to their dying. There is no celebratory aspect to the place. Second it’s very Germanic, the graves are in the style of Iron Crosses and the font is in the Germanic style. Third, the soldiers are noticeably younger than the allied cemeteries. There is a real sense of a desperate state pouring every able bodied male of whatever age into the front line. They can hardly have been trained. There is an air of absolute futility about the place.
Also it has the best toilets between Caen and Cherbourg.
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