The Miniatures Man: Normandy trip – day 2

Monday, 24 June 2013

Normandy trip – day 2 – the beaches

Day two started with a short visit at Sainte-Mère-Église, where American paras dropped on top of German troops.

A poor para still hangs from the church tower. His real counterpart got stuck there, and survived by pretending to be dead, while a battle raged around him.

A well preserved Sherman outside the local museum. We didn’t have time to visit this one unfortunately.

An American gun. Don’t know which type, but it is obviously an AA. 3 inch? I saw the same type on several other places.

The French resistance visits

After that we went to the beach. Utah beach to be more precise.

Can’t go many meters without stumbling over a Sherman.

First view of the sea. Our guide leads the way.

More beach, not much cover for attacker or defender.

One of the bunkers. This one was armed with a gun giving flanking fire.

Next stop was a museum by the beach, missed the name of this one. Very nice, and well worth a visit.

A German wicker case for spent cartridges. I guess they had other things than recycling on their minds that day.

German camo

A saddle from horse drawn artillery. Good inspiration for the horses from the Revell artillery set I built before.

A tracked landing craft

A B-26. Fantastic.

A heavy truck, 2 ½ ton I think.

Landing craft

.50 cal

Beach defence, with a 75mm PAK

and an emplaced tank turret way past its best before date

A DUKW. Cool. I rode in one 35 years ago on Jersey, and took some crappy photos of the details with my then very crappy camera. I’ve been irritated about that since then. Nice to see one again… and take more close ups. Better result this time.