During my visit to the British landing beaches in Normandy, I visited the Pegasus Bridge Museum. The Museum is a relatively new museum and is built around the original Pegasus Bridge, which was removed some years ago to a new site near the river crossing when it became too weak to support the growing volume and weight of road traffic in the area.
The Museum can be reached by crossing the new Pegasus Bridge, passing Café Gondrée as you do so.This is an excellent museum, and well worth a visit if you are in Normandy.
I had just under an hour to walk round and to take photographs, and would have liked longer as this would have given me the opportunity to cross the new bridge and to drink in the first building to be liberated during Operation Overlord - Café Gondrée.
The Museum can be reached by crossing the new Pegasus Bridge, passing Café Gondrée as you do so.
Café Gondrée - as seen from the tour coach.
Pegasus Bridge
Pegasus Bridge - the figure on the right of the image gives some idea how long the bridge is.
Pegasus Bridge - the figures give some idea how wide the bridge is, including the pedestrian walkways on either side of the roadway.
A glider-borne Jeep, similar to that driven by my father.
The inside of an original Horsa Glider.
Inside the replica Horsa Glider that is housed in the grounds of the Museum.
A composite image of the replica Horsa Glider that is housed in the grounds of the Museum.
I had just under an hour to walk round and to take photographs, and would have liked longer as this would have given me the opportunity to cross the new bridge and to drink in the first building to be liberated during Operation Overlord - Café Gondrée.
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I enjoyed the post - particularly since my father was in the airborne and took part in the battle as well as being in the glider troops. He was lucky and survived!
ReplyDeleteRon
Ron,
ReplyDeleteMy father also took part in the airborne operation to cross the Rhine - Operation 'Varsity'.
Some years ago they had a special day at the Royal Artillery Museum (Firepower) to commemorate the part played by 53rd (Worcester Yeomanry) Air-landing Light Regiment RA during that operation, and my father was the only veteran who was able to get there on the day (mainly because I bullied him!). They treated him as an honoured guest, and he was overwhelmed by the deference paid to him.
What was particularly interesting was that for the first time in a very long time he stood upright the whole day (he has had a bad back for some years but this disappeared on the day) and was animated in a way that I had not seen since my mother died over seven years ago; he was eighteen again in spirit if not in body, and that feeling stayed with him for some time afterwards.
Bob