Omaha Beach
Utah Beach 'Czech Hedgehogs'
Normandy Cemetery
- Carnivals
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Military Tours
- Battle of the Bulge & Ardennes 3 Day Tour
- Battle of the Bulge 5 Day Tour
- Normandy Landings, Battle of the Bulge & Hurtgen Forest 10 Day
- Normandy Landings 5 Day
- Normandy Landings 3 Day
- USAAF & Airshow 3 Day Tour
- 6th Airborne Ardennes
- 6th Airborne Normandy
- Military VIP Deluxe Tours
- William C C Cavanagh
- Danny S Parker
Tour Programme
5 Day Normandy Landings Tour "The Longest Day"
With the Historian William C C Cavanagh
www.militarytours.com
"You are about to embark upon a great crusade" -Eisenhower to the Allied Forces, June 6
DAY 1 – Morning departure from London for our drive to Portsmouth on the south coast of England where we will board our ferry for Normandy. Dinner on board. Overnight accommodation in Normandy.
DAY 2 – Breakfast. This morning we 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. Then drive to the Pointe du Hoc; this coastal gun battery was captured by the men of the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion. Lunch is on your own. The Afternoon at leisure to visit the medieval city of Bayeux with its ancient cathedral. You have the option to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry, completed between 1070 and 1080, depicting another famous invasion in 1066. We drive to Port en Bessin and hear about Operation Pluto (Pipe-Lines Under The Ocean), a World War II operation to construct undersea oil pipelines under the English Channel between England and Normandy. See the only German coastal gun battery still sporting three of its four guns. Dinner with World War II veterans. Overnight.
DAY 3 - Breakfast. We drive to the British Airborne cemetery in Ranville and join 6th Airborne veterans and the Mayor of Ranville in the annual 6th June Anniversary ceremonies led by a French band. We will take part in the Service and Wreath laying ceremony. See the shell damaged church. Join in the vin d’honneur before visiting the Pegasus Memorial Museum. Visit the British 6th Airborne zone of operations to see the "Pegasus Bridge”. We then move to the Gondree Café (first liberated building) when we may meet Arlette Gondree who was four at the time of the liberation. Drive along the British Beaches GOLD, JUNO and SWORD. We visit Arromanches and see the remnants of one of the two artificial harbors erected by the Allies after D-Day. Overnight
DAY 4 - Breakfast. Today we drive through the 101st Airborne drops zones C and D then onto the Division command post. We pass the Brécourt Manor captured by Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment - 'A Band of Brothers' into the sector of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. We then go to Utah Beach where American sailors wrote their names and addresses inside a captured German bunker. We visit Saint Mere Eglise and its famed 13th century church with its Airborne stained glasswindows. The Airborne museum followed by lunch on your own. This afternoon we see the La Fiere bridgehead and its "Iron Mike" U.S. Airborne statue. Visit the German military cemetery at La Cambe. We drive to the Merville Battery where we will be special guests at the unveiling ceremony for Dakota 43-15073 from which US paratroopers jumped on the night of June 5/6, 1944 over Ste Mere Eglise. The ceremony is expected to be attended by a Head of State and the Ambassadors from the USA, UK and Bosnia. Dinner with World War II veterans. Overnight.DAY 5 - After breakfast we drive to our ferry alongside SWORD Beach for the return journey to England and London arriving late afternoon..