Day: May 12, 2025

Crépon day 2

Today we explored the backroads around where we are staying. We are in the the British and Canadian sectors of the Normandy invasion.

We started at the Big British Normandy Memorial. It was opened in 2021

Next we stopped at the Green Howard’s D-Day Memotial. It’s in Crépon near where we are staying. The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howard’s) are the unit that captured Crépon on D-Day.

The man in the statue resembles Stanley Hollis from the regiment. He was the only British soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his fighting on D-Day.

Just a couple of miles from Crépon are what’s left of a German Gun Battery. There were several big bumkers. According to the signs this kind of a battery would have been equipped with four 100 mm howitzers.

One of the gun emplacements

We also had fun taking pictures of the different crops we drove by and using the Apple plant identification feature to figure out what we were seeing.

Bread wheat
Flax
Broad Bean

Our next stop was a memorial to the squadron situated at the aerodrome that was built here after the invasion. The airfield was one of many built immediately after the invasion.

B3 aerodrome memorial
Almost every memorial we saw had great informational signs.

A bit farther away we stopped at the Benny-Sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery.

The cemetery was beautifully tended and full of flowers

Mid afternoon we had a picnic.

Picnic lunch
We also had cheese and bread for dinner in the bar of our Ferme. The bread and cheese here in Normandy are addictive!

After eating we checked out the memorial across from where we are staying. It is about the Belgians who fought with the RAF.

The memorial across from our hotel.
Ferme de La Rançonnière where we are staying