Saturday 21 October 2006

Merville, Juno, Pegasus Bridge

We were at a nice retreat center in Merville, Normandy. This was view from our room, first morning. The retreat was great for us, learnt a few important things and got to know some really great folks.

We were free to go wherever we wanted for reflection time. I went down to the beach twice, it was colder in the morning with the strong sea breeze coming in. The dog here was running around waiting for its master who is trawling for mussels (?) in the background.

There was a free afternoon where we could go and do our stuff. Some folks wanted to visit one of the D-Day landing sites and we drove for about 1.5 hours and ended up in Le Bessin, site of the Juno landing sector. It was pretty amazing, coz parts of the Mulberry Harbor concrete caissons were still visible even till this day. British construction is solid man. Circled in red is our location, in green is our retreat center in Merville.

This illustration shows the movement of the concrete caissons from England.

This is the view from the hill overlooking the town at Juno beach.

We rested at Pegasus Bridge drawbridge. When we reached this place, I found it strangely familiar, though I've visited before. After reading the signboard, I realized that I had played on this bridge in COD! woah.... it was surreal man. The details in the game were so faithful to real life, was pretty amazed at the similarities.

Another view of the bridge.

This is the Pegasus Bridge Cafe. No photography were allowed inside but it was filled with British Airborne memorabilia.

Close up of the cafe signboard.

Some of the church folks climbed up the tank for a picture.

Wes

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Impressive! Fitting place for all amphibious troops to make their pilgrimage.

Goggy

Anonymous said...

Cool...thanks for sharing the pics, sure looks Normandy...even the sky looks D-day-ish. How does it feel to trot on the same road as those 502 PIR lads, or the 1st infantry...

Anonymous said...

haggis > dono man, only thing I felt was that it must have been a hell on earth that day, with all the shelling from both sides. esp after watching Saving Pte Ryan. wes

wahj said...

you're right: I forgot that pegasus bridge is a CoD scenario! now that you point it out, it is eerie to see the real thing.

Anonymous said...

wahj > eerie is the word. considering that we fought in a virtual battle. strangest eerie feeling. stil remember the arti drops, tanks and tonnes of German reinforcement. wes