Summers passing..

Well, that's it.  Summer is officially over..the sun has lost it's glow.  Autumn began on Friday which left me to ponder over Summer just passed.  What memories will i take from summer 2011?  I'll remember fondly Ollie winning medals at Cub sports days, Swimming and Diving.  Enjoying his School Sports Day and fun days by the river at Ilkley and Baildon.  Our trip to London, Ollies first, and days out to the York Maze and the Forbidden corner. The trips to Bourne are always anticipated and enjoyed, the annual Bourne Boules Championships being a fun memory!  Eddie and Jackie are always generous hosts!

For me though the Summer trip to France is something I'll remember all my life.  As well as the pleasure of visiting parents who always welcome with open arms and a parents hug, the fulfilment of a wish to visit the Normandy battlefields was finally fulfilled.  It was an emotional trip at times, visiting the places I had read about and seen countless documenteries about.  To stand in the footsteps of heroes and imagine what trials and tribulations they lived through.  To visit the cemetries and see at first hand the row upon row of well tendered graves, sometimes friend and foe side by side was eye opening.  The sheer scale of loss of life is astonishing.  To see that the French still to this day pay due respect was quietly pleasing with American, British and Canadian flags flying proud from Official monument, to roadside memorial to individual houses.  To enjoy touring the idylic countryside of Normandy with its quiet country lanes , deserted roads and picture postcard villages and enjoy the famous French local food and wine was wonderful.  It was great to share this with Eddie and Jackie and of course Jo.  It was great to visit Denise, Eddie and Bernie

So, another summer closes but with that begins the planning for next year...

What was memorable for you this summer?

A Quiet Place

I visited a place once, it made me cry

A place where sons and fathers were sent to die

The distant drums of what went before

Are an echo now, heard no more

A Band of Brothers, they went ashore

From the skies above they dropped to the floor

To face the duel of life or death

I followed paths their souls had tred

The land I trod is tranquil now

On sands and sod my head did bow

Repect to pay is honoured now

As names together lay row on row

I will go back, as should we all

To honour those who in battle did fall

To a lay a wreath, a silent thought

To those brave young men who died and fought..

Adrian Smith 2011

Tin Hat time..

Cape Canaveral, Florida: A defunct NASA science satellite is expected to fall back to Earth on Friday, showering debris somewhere on the planet although scientists cannot predict exactly where, officials said.
The 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, was carried into orbit during a space shuttle mission in 1991. It operated for 14 years, collecting measurements of ozone and other chemicals in the atmosphere.
Since completing its mission in 2005, UARS has been slowly losing altitude, tugged by Earth's gravity. On Friday, the 35-foot-long, 15-foot diameter (10.6-metres long, 4.5-metres diameter) satellite is expected to plunge into the atmosphere, NASA reported on its website.

The seven-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is deployed by the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-48) in this NASA handout photo dated September 1991.

Reuters

While most of the spacecraft will be incinerated, scientists expect up to 26 pieces, with a combined mass of about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) to survive the fiery re-entry and fall down somewhere on Earth.
The satellite's orbit passes over most of the planet, from as far north as northern Canada to the southern part of South America.
NASA said the chance a piece of UARS debris will strike a person is about one in 3,200. The debris will mostly likely fall into an ocean or land in an uninhabited region of Earth.
Satellites as large as UARS re-enter Earth's atmosphere about once a year.
NASA said there have been no reports of any deaths or injuries to people from falling debris.
The largest chunk of wreckage from UARS is expected to be about 331 pounds (151 kg), says Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
As of Sunday, UARS was in a 133-mile by 149-mile (215-km by 240-km) high orbit around Earth. Re-entry is expected some time on Friday, although it could happen as early as Thursday or as late as Saturday.

My MUM and DAD

Here's a picture I took on my summer trip to France to visit Normandy and my Parents. It's of my Mum and Dad, Richard and Val and I rather quite like it...

Ollie, Spike and the Scarecrows..

A quick update on what else is happening as a break from the Normandy postings.  Ollie has a new friend!  He is now responsible for a new little friend...SPIKE.

"Hello Spike, welcome to your new home.."

"How's tricks, are you settling in?"

"Let's get to know each other..I'm Oliver.."

This weekend,Oliver and myself went up to the village for the annual Scarecrow walk. There were over 60 Scarecrows around the village to find...her's just a few of them..

"Wow...a parachutist!"

" Der der der der der der der der der der der der der der der.. Batman!!"

"He's a big one!"   The pied piper on the scaffold..

"Dad...where's Wally???"

One of Ollies favourite films 'Dispicable me'..

And finally...

Ahem...should you be doing 37mph in a 30 mph zone....lol

tut tut  :-)

D-Day part 7 The Beaches (part 1)

We all know the names of the beaches JUNO, GOLD, SWORD, UTAH and OMAHA, and this summer I was lucky to be able to visit them all.  Nowadays they are glorious, wide, expansive, golden sanded and happy places.  Very quiet compared to the usual holiday hotspots and when I was enjoying Utah beach on a hot sunny day i only saw another 5 people all afternoon.  However, it was a different story on 6 June 1944 and reflections on that momentous day are never far away...

The first beach we visited was Utah.  On the whole they had a relatively easy time of it especially compared to Omaha. Utah is 3 miles long and was the westernmost of the beaches and was only added to operation Overlord in the latter planning stages as more landing craft became available.

Two noteables who landed on this beach in the first assault wave were Theodore Roosevelt Jr who was awarded the Medal of honour for his decisive command on the beach on D-Day and J D Salinger, noteable author of the time.  Theodore Roosevelt is buried in the American cemetry at Coleville sur mer having suffered a fatal heart attack on 12 July 1944.

This a quick shot of Utah on the first visit.  Slightly overcast you can see Eddie and myself contemplating what it must have been like.  Behind us is one of the 'beach exits' that the troops used to head inland.  The brown building is the UTAH beach museum.

Heading back off Utah towrds 'exit 2'.  The exit leads through a bunker network straight onto the 'Liberation Highway' the route taken by the Allies as they headed inland.

Eddie and Jackie in reflective mood on Utah..

Another day on Utah.  All along the beach are the remains of the 'Atlantic Wall'

The sand is slowly starting to encroach on the block houses but they are so big you can still
climb on and in them.  if you look to the right of the pic there is a wasp caught in flight!

These block house would have been capable of putting down an arc of murderous fire across the beach

The view from the block house pictured above..

Now onto Omaha, which is 5 miles long.  This is the entrance off the beach known as the Vierville draw.  To the left you can see the National Guard memorial which is built on a defensive block house which laid down fire over the beach infront of it.  This part of Omaha is DOG sector.

 Looking over DOG sector, the westernmost point of OMAHA.  The Americans had it hard here, very hard.
Omaha became known as 'Bloody Omaha'
Within 7 to 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, Company A had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. The Company was almost totally bereft of officers.  All the officers were dead except Lt Elijah Nance who had been hit in the head as he left the boat, and then again in the body as he reched the sands. Lt Edward Tidrick was hit in the throat as he jumped from the ramp into the water.  He then went onto the sands and flopped down 15ft from Pvt Leo J Nash.  He raised up to give Nash an order.  In rising up he had become a target for just an instant, Nash saw machine gun bullet cleave him from head to pelvis.

In less than 20 minutes Company A ceased to be an assault company.  And this was a recurring theme along Omaha.  It was planned that by nightfall of D-Day those landing on Omaha would have a bridgehead 16 miles wide and 5 miles deep.  In reality, by nightfall the bridgehead was barely the length of the beach and averaged less than 1 mile deep with most units still below the cliffs.

It is the action here that opening to the film 'Saving Private Ryan" is based on.

Strolling along Omaha in the sunshine...

Unknown location of the landings on D-Day..

 

D-Day part 6 Longues-sur-Mer-Battery and Carentan

The Longues-sur-Mer battery was a World War II artillery battery constructed by the Wehrmacht near the French village of Longues-sur-Mer in Normandy. It formed a part of Germany's Atlantic Wall coastal fortifications.
The battery was completed by April 1944. Although constructed and manned initially by the Kriegsmarine, the battery was later transferred to the German army. The site consisted of four 152-mm navy guns, each protected by a large concrete casemate, a command post, shelters for personnel and ammunition, and several defensive machine-gun emplacements.


The battery at Longues was situated between the landing beaches Omaha and Gold. On the night before the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944, the battery was subject to heavy bombing from allied air forces. The bombing was followed from 0537hrs on the morning of the landings by bombardment from the French cruiser Georges Leygues as well as the U.S. battleship Arkansas. The battery itself opened fire at 0605hrs and fired a total of 170 shots throughout the day, forcing the flagship HMS Bulolo to retreat to safer water. Three of the four guns were eventually disabled by British cruisers Ajax and Argonaut, though a single gun continued to operate intermittently until 1900hrs that evening. The crew of the battery (184 men, half of them over 40 years old) surrendered to the 231st Infantry Brigade the following day. The heaviest damage was caused by the explosion of the ammunition for a AA gun, mounted by the British on the roof of casemate No.4, which killed several British soldiers.

^{An ariel shot after the battle showing the heavy cratering from both air and sea bourne artillary.}

Here is a shot i tokk showing the line of casements as they are today..

A contemporary shot taken after the battery has been taken..

Eddie and myself outside the casements as they look today.

Some were taken with their guns intact..

A close up showing the tooling inside the barrel of one of the guns..

One of the casements is destroyed, not by allied bombing though but this exploded when being used as a bomb store for the a nearby hastily built RAF airfield.

The Guns are aiming towards the beaches of Omaha and Utah..

There's always one....

Carentan

The battle of Carentan is quite a tale and instead of being reproduced here by me can be read here at this link  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carentan .  It has also been portrayed as a seperate episode in the Steven Speilberg drama series 'The Band of Brothers'.

Here are a couple of pics I took when visiting Carentan..

This pic shows the handing over ceremony to the Mayor after it has been liberated by the allies.  If you look to the right of the pic you can make out a little girl, 8 years old who presented the incumbent allied commander with a bouquet of flowers.  Minutes after this picture was taken she would be laying dead in the square as the Germans opened up with mortars scattering the presentation party.

This picture is taken by me of the square today.  I am stood on the statue that you can see on the picture above.  The arches o the right of the pic show my position relative to the picture above.

Came across this renovated landing craft in the port area of the town.

Further research on the web has highlighted that this little landing craft has a unique history and we were lucky to find it.  The full story can be read here..

http://www.americancenterfrance.org/front/index.php?&lvlid=24&dsgtypid=10&artid=97&pos=0&lang=en