Thursday visit to Pegasus Bridge
Thursdays Child
Robin & Joanna Minchin
Thu 4 Jun 2015 21:38
000.14.872W
Port de Plaisance, Ouistreham
In glorious sunshine today we visited the Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum. In town there was a real buzz about the place with restored jeeps, trucks, motorbikes & sidecars and many people dressed up in army uniforms, quite an amazing atmosphere.
Once inside the Museum a calmness descended and we found a huge collection of original artefacts donated by families of veterans, which together with many restored and original pieces of kit brought the whole story alive.
Fortunately for us, an excellent Museum guide described the events of the 5/6 June, we then watched a 12 minute film, before visiting the original Pegasus Bridge which had been moved to the grounds when the new bridge was built ~ she pointed out the bullet holes on the counterweight just to prove it was the original! After that we stood in the shade provided by the wings of a replica Horsa glider while she talked us through the heroics of 6th Airborne over the period 5/6 June.
In the grounds of the Museum was also an original Bailey Bridge and several original restored tanks, jeeps and guns. It really was very special to see it all, and particularly moving to imagine Harry Minchin with his 46 Commandos coming here perhaps around midday on the 6th June to relieve those who had arrived in the dark by glider and parachute, 71 years ago tomorrow night.
