After engine servicing and prop refurbishment, we suffered a bit of tank fatigue.
A visit to Normandy, amazing countryside where history was made in 1944, and where it seems there’s a tank on a plinth every couple of kilometres, even some in car parks…it’s usually (but not always) a Sherman of some description. Sherman:
And another…
Ooh! Not a Sherman! Technically not even a tank. A Churchill AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers). This one helped to bridge an anti tank ditch at Juno Beach…
A Sherman…
Shermanesque, but not even a tank (Thank you Patrick)…M10 Tank Destroyer:
And a Churchill Crocodile flame thrower tank, minus its trailer full of fuel:
Centaur at Pegasus Bridge…
Aha! Another Sherman:
And another. This is one of the DD (Duplex Drive) swimming versions which made it to shore on Juno Beach:
This next DD Sherman didn’t reach the shore – recovered off Omaha Beach and now in the Museum of Underwater Wrecks…
Stuart light tank which was salvaged:
As was this Sherman bulldozer…
And….another Sherman. At Utah Beach this time.
Self propelled artillery on a (Sherman based!) tracked chassis. Still counts.
German Hetzer tank destroyer at Bayeux museum:
And another Sherman, at the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église. You can just make out the reconstruction of US paratrooper John Steele hung up on the church steeple:
Stuart light tank at Saint-Côme-du-Mont. Fascinating German paratrooper museum here as well as the D-Day Experience museum.
Another M10 tank destroyer…
Yet another Sherman…
And a final Sherman to finish…
It’s not all organised museums and tanks on plinths. Every little village seems to have a plaque or memorial somewhere hidden away. This one is in plain sight. The Great War memorial in Trévières was damaged by a shell (from a Sherman!) a few days after D-Day, and during reconstruction the town elders decided to leave it.
