Day 1 - Monday June 04 - British Airborne
Depart Paris or London for our transfer to Normandy. Visit the British 6th Airborne zone of operations to see the "Pegasus Bridge" and the British Airborne cemetery in nearby Ranville. See the shell damaged church. We discuss the British operations in this area and visit the new Pegasus Museum. We then move to the Gondree Café (the first building liberated in Normandy) and meet Arlette Gondree who was four at the time of the liberation. Tours International has been the official tour operator for the 6th Airborne since 1987. Dinner and overnight accommodation in Normandy.
Day 2 - Tuesday June 05 - US Airborne and Utah Beach
Breakfast. Today we drive to Utah Beach and see where American soldiers wrote their names and addresses inside a captured German bunker. We view other German bunkers and also drive through the 101st Airborne drops zones C and D then on to the Division command post. We pass the Brécourt Manor captured by Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Into the sector of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. We visit Saint Mere Eglise with lunch at your own cost in the charming village square. We visit the famed 13th century church with its Airborne stained glass windows and the Airborne museum. This afternoon we visit the La Fiere bridgehead and the "Iron Mike" U.S. Airborne statue. We will also watch (subject to weather) the parachute drop by over 800 US Airborne and other nationalities. We return to our Normandy hotel for our overnight accommodation.
Day 3 - Wednesday June 06 - D Day - US Omaha, Pointe du Hoc and Cemetery
This morning we visit the German military cemetery at La Cambe then drive to the Pointe du Hoc. This coastal gun battery was captured by the men of the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion. We then travel down the Vierville Draw to the 29th Infantry Division sector of Omaha Beach. After a walk on the beach we drive east on the coast road then up the "Les Moulins" Draw to the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Laurent sur Mer, where we pay our personal respects with a wreath laying ceremony to those who gave their lives for our freedom. See the only German coastal gun battery still sporting three of its four guns. Lunch at your own cost. This afternoon we visit the site of The Battle of the Falaise Pocket. The battle would lead to the annihilation of two German armies, the 5th and the 7th Panzer Army. The Germans were surrounded with only one exit, a small opening which became known as The Corridor of Death - resulting in the massacre of over 10,000 German troops. Major Currie of the Canadian Army was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in command of a battle group of tanks during the final actions to close the Falaise Gap. Overnight in our Normandy hotel.
Day 4 - Thursday June 07 - British and Canadian
After breakfast we visit Arromanches and see the remnants of one of the two artificial harbours erected by the Allies after D-Day. In order to re-supply the invasion after the initial landings two concrete floating harbours named 'Mulberries' were towed across the Channel. One was assembled off Omaha beach and the other off Arromanches. We head for Gold beach. The D-Day landing force here was the British 50th Northumbrian Division. The task was to penetrate inland beyond the N13 Bayeux to Caen road, to take the German gun battery at Longues and to link up with the Americans at Omaha beach. Then on to Juno beach, where the 3rd Canadian Division landed under the command of Major General Keller. By the end of D-Day this Division had made the greatest inroads into Normandy of all the landing forces. We visit the Canadian cemetery overlooking corn fields to Juno Beach and the Abbaye d'Ardenne where 20 Canadian soldiers were murdered by the SS. At Sword beach we see where the 3rd British Division landed with the ambitious target of getting inland as far as the city of Caen by the end of the day and linking up with the British airborne landings at Pegasus Bridge. It was on Sword that Piper Bill Millin played the British Commandoes ashore with 'Highland Laddie' and CSM Stan Hollis won the only VC awarded on D-Day itself. Return to Paris or London.
