D Day. June 6th 1944

On our way back through France we called into Normandy, the site of the D Day invasion on the 6th June 1944. The French treat the day with the importance it deserves, there is so much to see here and so much to learn from the past.

We arrived at Arromanches, the site of Mulberry Harbour, a massive temporary construction made in the months following D Day, to allow troops and supplies into France. We then headed over to Pegasus Bridge and Ranville, the Airborne Bridgehad.

And this is why we keep returning to Normandy. My wife Irene's Dad, Denis Moreland, arrived in Normandy by glider in the first minutes of the sixth of June 1944. He was one of the "Pathfinders" who's role was to capture and secure the bridge over the Orne canal prior to the D Day Invasion. The bridge was captured successfully and from then on known as Pegasus Bridge, after the insignia of the 6th Aiborne Division who carried out that brave and heroic mission that commenced the liberation of France. This picture is in the Airborne Museum at Pegasus Bridge and Denis, Gunner Moreland, is in the middle of the back row, aged 19.