Day 3: Normandy!

Day 3 opened with a visit to the Mulberry Harbor, near town of Arromanche. The Mulberry Harbor was essentially a bring your own harbor to resupply troops. No troops landed here on D-Day. It was primarily used for resupply until Nov 44.

After taking a look at the remnants of the Mulberry Harbor, we scooted over to the Juno Beach Centre. The visit started with a brief introduction to the various statues and monuments that make up the grounds outside of the centre and was followed by a shirt introductory video of Canada's war efforts inside before being released into the museum itself. The museum covered Canada's involvement in the Second World War, both from a military front as well as the domestic front. After, we all made our way down to the beaches of Normandy where most of the cadets proceeded to remove their shoes and stood in the waters that our Canadian troops landed in on 6 Jun 44. WO Miles played his pipes on the beach and the haunting echo was eery as it floated across the wind swept beach. With the sounds of the pipes still playing in our minds, the cadets collected bottles of sand and water to commemorate the soldiers who landed there 69 years ago.

From the beaches of Normandy, we then made our way to the first house liberated by the Royal Rifles of Canada on D-Day with a short stop at a Sherman tank along the way. We walked along the windy and cold beachfront further along where the Canadians landed before boarding the bus and heading towards our first cemetery visit at Beny sur Mer - this cemetery holds the graves of soldiers who died in the first half of the Normandy campaign.

After the beaches of Normandy, we made our way to the Pegasus Memorial where the British 6th airborne division were tasked with capturing several bridges and the merville battery at the beginning of d-day. Although this did not involve the Canadians, the last group really enjoyed the museum and so made the same stop over this time as well.

We finished Day 3 at L'abbie d'ardenne, where 19 Canadian soldiers who were Prisoners of War were murdered by the German SS.

A sober end to an otherwise great day learning about Canada's contribution to The D-Day campaign. Day 4 will see us in Dieppe!