To Normandie for the D Day anniversary...

[simonbav]

What's a WAG, Jeff?

[22900013A]

I might be considered slightly mad taking a 1 Ton 109" into Europe but this is great fun, really hones the driving skills. Averaging a nice 50mph cruise and around 13mpg.

Not mad at all.  Over the last 14 years GEU has been half a dozen times on camping trips with my then young family, as far as Italy.  Next month, kids grown up, its just me & Liz going to Brittany.  Luxury now we sleep in the back rather than on the ground in tents!

But you may be mad for the 13mpg.  Nissan LD28 in mine returns 30mpg on these long trips laden.  I love it for that, don't like it isn't a Land Rover, like that it much quieter than a tdi!

Normandy beaches trip is sobering, but I found when we went that 7 days was too long, too much and northern Normandy does not have a lot else to offer to the tourist.  There is only so much Normandy landings a family will take.  I found the Flanders battle fields more family friendly in that there are other things to do in the area's, Bruges etc, to break up the more somber.

Paul

Did around 150-200 miles yesterday, two tanks of fuel, all that time and noise at 50mph is a bit draining, but did see Omaha beach and the event there, loads of reenactors, probably every Jeep and GMC ever built...started off seeing the Tiger at Vimoutiers, then the falaise museum/polish Memorial but pretty much everything is barriered off.

[22900013A]

Some pics

[biloxi]

Why poster size pictures ?
.W.

[22900013A]

🤷

[Seanlandy]

What of the next generation? As a primary school teacher, I always ensure that my school commemorates Remembrance Day and that the children have a measure of understanding. Tomorrow I will do the same, even though they are so removed from its happenings. On the way to school this morning, there was an historian stating that, with so few of living veterans and with ever fewer, that it is now even more important that these momentous occasions in history be commemorated. I can't help but agree.

[simonbav]

There's the cynical saying that history repeats itself, it has to because no-one listens.

I think there's a certain truth, that every generation needs to learn it's own values for itself, because the lessons that others learned are no longer part of the current sense of "wisdom". My Dambuster neighbour would never buy a German car, but today, when the world, and national allegiances, are so different from the 20th century, nineteenth or eighteenth centuries, I'd be viewed as a fool if I tried to live with the same prejudices of any of those centuries  however valuable or sensible they were to my dear neighbour or folk from other earlier generations. .

[22900013A]

I'm surprised how few Land Rovers are out here, saw an 80" series 1 yesterday, and a handful of coilers, but there must be practically every surviving Jeep, GMC 2 1/2 tonner and Dodge W.C out here, they are literally everywhere.

[simonbav]

I'm surprised how few Land Rovers are out here, saw an 80" series 1 yesterday, and a handful of coilers, but there must be practically every surviving Jeep, GMC 2 1/2 tonner and Dodge W.C out here, they are literally everywhere.

But Land Rover wasn't even conceived until the war was long over.

[22900013A]

Which is besides the point that I'm surprised so few are here, as most owners are history enthusiasts.

[simonbav]

May be beside the point for you. I guess the war is a specific box in my mental field, not blurred with other historic periods. 1960, when my first LR was built, is in a completely different mind space. Likewise my 1066 archaeological "head" or my Tudor C15th & C16th involvement. Horses for courses.

[JohnR2]

I was at St mere Eglise yesterday, I was disappointed to see post-war jeeps and even Swiss kit-car jeeps being let through as though they were wartime. Great display of the real stuff though and very moving to hear the applause for the veterans. Had to laugh at the sense of humour of the hairdresser owner!

 

[s2c-04905]

Hello, this was my Lightweight two weeks ago. Pegasus Bridge and Sword Beach

[22900013A]

Very few LRs about but did see some, plus made an obligatory roadside coffee stop.

[Alan Drover]

I think it was in "The Dambusters" film where a Series 1 made a brief appearance.