Author Archives: ColinAuthor

Normandy 2014

May 26, 2014 – 9:51 pm

Normandy 70 Final preparations are almost complete for the first of three trips to Normandy in this 70th Anniversary year As usual, there will be a mix of research,, history, meeting Veterans and I suspect that beer, wine, cider & Calvados will also be involved! Day #1 – Friday 30th May This should be a […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#12 Wednesday 12th June

January 4, 2014 – 5:09 pm

And so to home… via a brewpub, naturally! An earlyish breakfast saw us off to fill up with some presents & fuel at the local supermarket before heading back to the Chunnel. Whilst, in some ways, we’d not added as much to the tale of “The Men in the Shed” on this trip, we had, perhaps, […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#11 Tuesday 11th June

January 3, 2014 – 11:10 pm

A medal, a Beach, a Band of Brothers and Azeville Battery’s painted bunkers An eclectic day finished off our last full day in France. As we were right on UTAH breach, I decided to go and take some photos as well as taking a jar full of sand I know it is wrong and if […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#10 Monday 10th June

January 3, 2014 – 8:51 pm

A PoW’s  journey You’ll recall that last year we met Bill Sullivan & his wife, Elizabeth, who, whilst not one of the “MenInTheShed”, gave me (via Morris Sheppard’s son, Jim) lots of information of the time when he was “on the run” with Morris, allowing us to re-find the places they’d been, I was proud to […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#9 Sunday 9th June

December 20, 2013 – 11:29 pm

Tilly Book Fair and balloons Tilly Book Fair The “Salon du Livre de la Battaille de Normandie” or “Tilly Book Fair of the Battle of Normandy” is now in it’s fifth year. The “brainchild” of the Tilly 1944 Association and in particular the curator of the museum at Tilly sur Seulles  – Stéphane Jacquet – […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#8 Saturday 8th June

December 17, 2013 – 9:45 pm

Presentations and P47s in Normandy With Peter Findlay So, as is usual on these trips, we got up in the morning & immediately amended the plans that we had for the day! The reason for this was that Peter Findlay, one of our hosts, was being honoured with the presentation of a medal from the […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#7 Friday 7th June

November 4, 2013 – 8:49 pm

Operation BLUECOAT, Sainte-Mère-Église and UTAH Beach Following Operation BLUECOAT In the past, whenever we’ve visited Normandy and followed the tour of Opertion BLUECOAT laid out in the back of Ian Daglish’s book on the subject, we’ve always started at Caumont & made it as far as Le Beny Bocage, or perhaps th e cemetery at […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#6 Thursday 6th June

August 29, 2013 – 9:18 pm

Bocage, Hill 226 and St Charles de Percy Bocage bagging When reading & talking about the post D-Day fighting one word crops up time and again: “Bocage”. So what was “Bocage” or “The Hedgerow Country” as Americans called it? A dictionary definition is: “the wooded countryside characteristic of northern France, with small irregular-shaped fields and […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#5 Wednesday 5th June

August 1, 2013 – 10:25 pm

Operation EPSOM & Hill 112 Operation EPSOM revisited So, waking up to a dull & overcast morning (as 5th June was, last year), we set off to follow one of the Tours in the BattleZone Normandy book on Operation EPSOM written by Lloyd Clark. Operation EPSOM was the Allies third attempt to take the D […]

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Normandy 2013 – Day#4 Tuesday 4th June

June 13, 2013 – 10:13 pm

Rouen to Operation GOODWOOD Rouen Leaving Patrick and the brewery, we headed down into Rouen itself for a look around as we’d been through it on a number of occasions without taking any time out for a good sightseeing. So having parked up without too much navigation of Rouen’s one-way system required, we took to […]

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