Orne

Son visitas obligadas para los apasionados por la Segunda Guerra Mundial la playa Omaha de casi diez kilómetros, la única donde los aliados encontraron un fuerte, una fuerte resistencia.

Y sobre uno de sus acantilados, el cuidado cementerio estadounidense de Coleville-sur-Mer, la punta de Hoc, un promontorio acribillado por las bombas para destruir unos cañones falsos, el puente Pegaso sobre el Orne, en Benouville, junto al café Gondree, que presume de ser la primera casa liberada de Francia, todavía regentada por la misma familia, la colosal batería de Longues-sur-Mer o el emotivo memorial de Caen dedicado a la paz.

En Arromanches-les-Bains, la marea baja devuelve a la luz los restos de algunos de los cien-- 115 bloques de hormigón con los que se creó un puerto artificial de ocho kilómetros y del campanario de Sainte-Mère-Église.

Cuelga un paracaídas que recuerda al soldado que se quedó allí enganchado.

Three of the gliders will attack the bridge over the Caen Canal at Benneville.

The other three will attack the bridge over the River Orne at Ranville.

The Caen Canal gliders need specific modifications.

These three fly right-handed turns.

They are the first tanks ever flown into battle.

The gliders land on two zones.

Landing Zone N lies east of the River Orne, near Ranville.

Landing Zone W lies west of the Caen Canal.

The commanders and the state of the divisions guarding the coast left much to be desired.

Defending the coast of Normandy from the outlet of the River Orne at Ouistreham west to Arnel was the 716th Infantry Division.

They would face the British and Canadian forces at Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches on D-Day.

The division was mostly composed of both extremely young and over military age troops, foreign conscripts, along with former Soviet prisoners of war called Osttruppen, meaning eastern troops.

Sir Max, a very good day to you.

This is wonderful, but we're going to ride those horses, those gliders, into a crash near the Orne Bridge.

The Orne Bridge now is a stop-off for we tourists who come to see the Battle of Normandy.

I think they've set it aside and they've built a new Orne Bridge.

Why did they need to capture that bridge before anything else? Good evening to you.

Good evening to you, John.

There's a danger, I think, that we sometimes take for granted things that we should still be amazed by.

And there were many things that happened on D-Day, both on the American and Canadian and British beaches, which were amazing.