A few more D-Day beaches: Gold, Utah and Arromanches.

We continued our visit to the Normandy Beaches by heading west to Gold and Utah. At Gold, we started by taking in the Arromanches 360 Circular cinema, which shows a really dramatic film about the landings. Well worth going, if you are ever there. At Utah, The D-Day Experience and Dead Man's Corner Museum were two themed museums that, again, were well worth visiting. Absorbing all of the information, sights and sounds really puts the conflict into its proper perspective. But it is still history in hindsight and, let's be honest, history that has been cleansed on the gore. I still can't get my head around what it really must have been like to have been there. I think only those who have been through something similar will know.

Gold Beach, the central of the five landing areas, was located between Port-en-Bessin on the west and La Rivière on the east. It was about 15 miles due west of Sword Beach Taking Gold was the responsibility of the 50th Division of the British Army, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided by the Royal Navy as well as elements from the Dutch, Polish and other Allied navies. The objectives, all successfully met, at Gold were to secure a beachhead, move west to capture Arromanches and establish contact with the American forces at Omaha, capture Bayeux and the small port at Port-en-Bessin, and to link up with the Canadian forces at Juno to the east. British casualties during the landing at Gold are estimated at 1,000–1,100, of which 350 were killed. German losses are unknown and at least 1,000 were captured.

Mulberry harbours were, quite simply, temporary portable harbours developed in the UK to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion. After the Allies successfully held beachheads following D-Day, two prefabricated harbours were taken in sections across the English Channel from Britain with the invading army and assembled off Omaha Beach (Mulberry "A") and, the one above at Gold Beach (Mulberry "B").The harbour at Gold Beach was used for 10 months after D-Day and over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies were landed before it was fully decommissioned. The still only partially-completed Mulberry harbour at Omaha Beach was damaged on 19th June by a violent storm that suddenly arrived from the north-east. After three days the storm finally abated and damage was found to be so severe that the harbour had to be abandoned.

The charity, D-Day Revisited, installed a garden commemorating D-Day at the Chelsea Flower Show this year. Subsequently, the designer, John Everiss moved and rebuilt the garden in seven days at a site overlooking Gold Beach and the Mulberry Harbour. The garden features two life-size sculptures of veteran Bill Pendell who landed on Gold beach during D-Day. It also includes 15 stone plinths bearing a word or sentence which captures the D-Day experience according to 15 veterans, four metallic figures struggling out of big waves, and a carpet of over 10,000 Armeria Maritima or ’Sea Thrift’ which would have been seen by the troops on the beaches of Plymouth and Normandy. It's a very powerful and effective piece and I think the transparency of the figures really works well.

The infra-red images give an added dimension and I particularly like the way the white crosses stand out.

A 'Tommy' wading ashore.

My dad's landing craft beached 200 yards off-shore and I thought of him when I saw this part of the tableau. A pedant would say (and I am that pedant) that this could not have been someone from 41 Commando as they were wearing the green berets of the Marines and not the standard issue tin helmet. The story goes that, as 41 Commando unit were drawing close to the beach, their leader, Lord Lovat, ordered them to remove their tin hats and wear their green berets - the signature of the Commandos unit. All through the war, they never wore a tin hat. Dad's green beret is on top of our piano at home and I see it every time I come through our front door. A treasured possession.

The westernmost of the five landing beaches was code-named Utah. The objective at Utah was to secure a beachhead on the Cotentin Peninsula, the location of important port facilities at Cherbourg. The amphibious assault, primarily by the US 4th Infantry Division and 70th Tank Battalion, was supported by airborne landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. The intention was to rapidly seal off the Cotentin Peninsula, prevent the Germans from reinforcing Cherbourg and capture the port as quickly as possible. 21,000 troops landed on Utah at the cost of only 197 casualties. Airborne troops arriving by parachute and glider numbered an additional 14,000 men, with 2,500 casualties. Around 700 men were lost in engineering units, the 70th Tank Battalion, and seaborne vessels sunk by the enemy. German losses are unknown. Cherbourg was captured on June 26th, but by this time the Germans had destroyed the port facilities, which were not brought back into full operation until September.

An interesting plaque at Utah Beach recognising the efforts of those who landed first and were involved in clearing the beaches as much as they could before the main body of troops arrived. I had the privilege once of flying back from Atlanta on a Delta flight in 1994 and sitting next to someone who had played an active role in this. He was from Florida and, with some of his surviving colleagues, was going back to Utah Beach to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landings. He told me that he was 18 at the time and fresh off the farm. Three quarters of the men in his platoon were killed on Utah Beach. A bitter-sweet memory that came flooding back when I saw the plaque and I wish I could have remembered his name.