The Allied landings on June 6, 1944 on five beaches in Normandy are world famous… with a few exceptions.
Omaha, Gold Beach… where do their names come from?
Goldfish, jellyfish, swordfish, the three British beaches take their names from fish but the Canadians refused to land on “jelly“, which means in English “jelly“fruit! Legend has it that a Canadian air force commander then suggested his wife’s first name, Juno. On the American side, a high-ranking officer simply asked two soldiers where they came from: the state of Utah in the west of the country, and the city of Omaha in Nebraska (central).
Mulberry A and Band Beach, the forgotten ones
The Mulberry A port, (“blackberry” in English and “HAS” for American) had barely taken office when it was swept away by a storm from June 19 to 21. Lacking a port, the Americans unloaded supplies directly on the beaches of Omaha, Utah and in small ports. Arromanches, the British port Mulberry B is used until November 19 As for Band Beach, initially planned to be the sixth landing beach between Ouistreham and Villers-sur-mer (Calvados), no one sets foot on its sand. airborne division landed there to seize the Merville battery. It was planned that the 46th Royal Marine Commando would land to take the Houlgate and Mont-Canisy batteries, a mission ultimately canceled. They would land on June 7 at Bernières-sur. -sea (Juno Beach).
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Nature takes its time…
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In pictures, “D-Day” or the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944
Stanley Hollis, only Victoria Cross of June 6
At 7:37 a.m., upon landing on Gold Beach, a 31-year-old British warrant officer named Stanley Hollis emptied the magazine of a machine gun on a small bunker off the beach. His men from the 6th Green Howards stormed the shelter before mocking their leader: “It’s a bus shelter!“June 6 starts off badly.
The second objective of the day is the coastal artillery battery of Ver-sur-mer. Under enemy fire, Hollis ran 50 meters in the open to attack a pillbox with grenades, then a second, and single-handedly brought back more than 30 prisoners. In the neighboring village of Crépon, he attacked a German position at “bazooka” and returns with a machine gun to save two of his men stranded in a field. For his “heroism and spirit of initiative“, Warrant Officer Hollis will be decorated with the only Victoria Cross awarded on June 6, the highest British military honor.
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“The lady of Trévières“
Disfigured. The statue of the Trévières war memorial, 8 km from Omaha Beach, was hit by a shell on June 6. Since then, she has looked like a broken face. On the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, American veterans fell in love with “the lady of Trévières“. A copy was inaugurated in 2002 at the entrance to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford (Virginia) by President George W. Bush. Other statues have appealed to Americans, such as that of General Eisenhower on the by-pass (ring road created by the British) of Bayeux It was reproduced in front of the American embassy in London.
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