D-Day Landings

It was a break with tradition from our annual trip to Ypres this year with 131 students travelling to the D-Day Normandy Beaches and the beautiful and historic town of Bayeux from the 20-23 March.  The itinerary included:

• Arromanches Invasion Museum.  This museum was the first to be built in commemoration of the 6 June 1944 landings and the Normandy Campaign, opened in 1954 to commemorate the 10^th anniversary.  The early hours of D-Day are brought to life in the museum by a diorama with special light and sound effects with the Hall of the Allied Nations allowing pupils to find out about all the different nationalities that took part in D-Day and featuring exceptional archive footage of Mulberry Harbour B.
• Caen Peace Museum.  An outstanding museum featuring sections on the Cold War, Genocide and Mass Violence as well as World War II with a new exhibition purely focused on the D-Day landings.
• Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum.  Here students found out about more about the first action of D-Day – Operation Deadstick – the capture of the Caen Canal and Orne river bridges.
• American National Cemetery. At the conclusion of the fighting in Normandy, there were more than ten American cemeteries on the battlefield, with hundreds of small burial grounds and isolated graves.  The Normandy American Cemetery has 9,387 burials of US service men and women including 33 pairs of brothers buried side by side.  The cemetery borders on the left flank of Omaha Beach and overlooks the sector where the 1^st Division landed on D-Day with a viewing platform and paths down to the slopes and onto the beach.
• Merville Battery Museum. The Battle of Merville Gun Battery occurred on 6 June 1944 as part of Operation Tonga.  The 9th Parachute Battalion was given the objective of destroying the battery. However, their parachute descent was dispersed over a large area so instead of over 600 men, only 150 with no heavy weapons or equipment arrived at the battalion assembly point.  Regardless, they pressed home their attack and succeeded in capturing the battery.  After the British had withdrawn the Germans reoccupied the battery position and the British never succeeded in completely destroying it, with it remaining under German control until 17 August when the German Army started to withdraw from France.
• Bayeux was known as Augustodurum in the Roman Empire, literally meaning ‘the door dedicated to Augustus’.  Just four miles from the English Channel, it has a violent and fascinating history with a Roman legion stationed there as part of the Roman coastal defences only to be later destroyed by the Vikings.  The famous cathedral was formally dedicated in 1077 and was built by William of Normandy’s half-brother Bishop Odo, who is also thought to have commissioned the world famous Bayeux Tapestry recounting the events of the Norman Invasion of England and its conquest in 1066.

Pictured: BRGS students laying a wreath at the Bayeaux War Cemetery.