After visiting the 2 US led beaches at Utah and Omaha, we moved on to the next D-Day landing beach, the British led assault at Gold beach, the centre of the 5 D Day beaches that made up Operation Overlord.

Just to note – I am not a military historian, so this is a very brief outline to provide some context to anyone who wants to visit the area. The museums are quite comprehensive and go into more detail if you want to know more!

Date: Tuesday, 6 June 1944

Time: 07:25

What happened:

British forces began started landing at Gold Beach. The assault was carried out by the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, whi ch included the Devonshire, Hampshire, Dorsetshire and East Yorkshire regiments.

Intense fighting ensued as German defenders used machine guns, artillery and fortified positions to counter the assault.

Places to visit today:

The Normandy British War Memorial at Gold Beach – not to sound biased here 😊 but the British War Memorial was probably the best one we saw across all 5 D Day sites. Quite strikingly different from the other memorials we saw in Normandy, the British war memorial depicts life size images of the soldiers as opposed to gravestones. The magnitude is astounding.

The America Museum at Gold Beach – this is an interesting if strangely titled museum, split into 2 parts.

The first part deals with the Trans-Atlantic flights (Charles Lindbergh etc)  and the establishment of the first air mail link between the US and France.

The second part deals with the preparations behind D Day by British intelligence units.

More information on the museum can be found here

Next time, we’ll look at Juno and Sword beaches.

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