OOOPS Looks like this post never actually made it live. It some how stayed as a draft. Well here it is now
We were all up early and off to catch our tour today of the
Canadian Juno Beach for the Normandy Invasion.
All seven of us were on the same tour so it made things easy.
The tour was only our group of seven so it was a pretty easy
bunch. The tour took us down to the
north end of Juno Beach were we got out and walked along a cliff overlooking
the beach. I have seen this view in a lot
of movies. After that we were down to
the main part of the Juno Beach where the Canadian House is. This was the first place in France which was
liberated in the Normandy Invasion. In
most of the pictures I have seen of it is pretty much bombed out but today it
looks pretty good. From there we were
into the Juno Museum which was started by a Canadian D-Day veteran. It was a great museum and did a wonderful
job of depicting the Canadian war effort.
I was feeling pretty punk from yesterday’s hard ride. I had a runny nose that I just couldn’t shut
off. So I got the tour director to stop
at a pharmacy where we went in and she pointed out some nasal mist which fixed
me right up. In addition it did a great job of putting me to sleep. Sitting in the rocking van all nice and warm
and I was out like a light.
After the Juno Beach museum we toured a couple of bunkers
which were typical of the Atlantic wall.
It would have taken a lot of courage to charge up the beach towards one
of these which had machine guns blasting away.
How these young men did it is a wonder to me. In addition these were all volunteers.
From there to the same cemetery we rode past yesterday and
on in to Caen and a bunch of other sites as the tour followed the Canadian’s
advance inland. Although a lot of these
sites are kind of a footnote to history it is still something that needs to be
remembered and the stories of these brave young men who fought against tyranny
need to be kept alive.
After the tour was over we stopped by a cathedral which is
said to contain the tomb of William the Conquer.
Tomorrow is the tour of the American Beaches.
Terry hot biker
3 comments:
Great pictures. This is a special war memorial for our parents and us. Hope to visit next year. Having great weather has got to make it special.
I am enjoying your comments Terry. Juno is a very emotional place for me, as our Canadian forces were the only ones to make their objective that June 6. Yes, our troops in the over seas arena were all volunteers. The draft was brought in later in the war but the draftees were assigned to national defense only.
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