doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - OT: 75th Anniversary of D-Day - 82nd Abn A/O

As you all know I'm in Normandy for the 75th anniversary to dedicate a plaque to my father, killed at Pretot on 20 June. We're wandering for the most part, at least initially, the 82nd Airborne a/o, more precisely the area the 508th PIR operated in from 06 June to 15 July 1944. I'll be posting photos as the week goes on.

Here is the B&B which is right on the DZ where the Pathfinder stick of the 3BN, 508th commanded by Lt. Gene H, Williams came down at 0130 hrs 06 June. The house was a German strong point. The four members of the stick who landed beyond the house didn't make it.



At night in Sainte Mere Eglise, which has become a sort of re-enactors Disneyland and tourist Mecca, hundreds of US paras along with re-enactors and military of other nations drink beer till midnight and beyond in the shadow of the famous church where the American 82nd trooper hung for several hours.



Reenactor WWII nurse getting hit on by young paratroopers.



Sainte Mere Eglise Steeple with a dummy of the hanging 505th trooper,



there must be 1,000 WWII jeeps and vehicles. Many of the re-enactors are just not authentic but the big thing now seems to be to dress up in a facsimile of an American WWII uniform.



Lots of different types of 75th anniversary wines on sale:



Ill be posting more. Until you try to walk the fields west of the Mederet River in the Brocage, you can't understand how impentrable the hedgerows were, featurelessness of the countryside and why we had such problems maneuvering in the area.

As an update from the 2019 75th D-Day anniversary in Normandy, this was sent to me by Mayor Terry Renaud of Pretot-Saint-Suzanne. There was a ceremony on the 79th anniversary 06/06/2023 at Pretot featuring my father. Interesting.



The reenactment groups have become so involved in this every 6th of June that you'll see the French tri-color veterans replaced by 508th PIR reenactors with precise uniform regalia. I'm told it's now impossible to get reservations in Normandy for next year for the 80th. Shades of our Civil War reenactments and Gettysburg.



I was substitute teaching a history class at a Northern Virginia Junior High School recently. One of the kids asked how old was I. I said, "I was born 2 days after D-Day; can you figure it out." Dead silence...finally one kid snapped his fingers and said "World War II, right?"