PW-2-2026

Focus on the SIGs – Motorcycle SIG

Normandy Invaded Again! by Mick Sharman-Davies

It started during the AGM in 2024, when we were planning trips for this year. I suggested another battlefield tour, the last one I conducted was in September 2022, to Bastogne. It was agreed that we should have one.

I started planning for the trip; Verdun had been suggested. I gave it some thought and decided that we should look at Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings. Basing ourselves at the Campanile hotel in Bayeux, which was central to the beaches, I chose 8th-12th September. The main holiday season was over, and the weather was still favourable for motorbike riding. The trip was to be over a week: assemble on Monday with two days touring the beaches and other locations, with Tuesday being the British day, Wednesday the American day, Thursday would be a day to please yourself, before returning on the Friday. Initially there were 10 of us, which included Joe Anderson, our Australian member, who was in the UK on holiday at the time, the week before one of the group had to drop out. The date arrived and the group assembled.

Canal was widened for the second time and the bridge was replaced with a modern one. The original bridge was left on a barge, moored on the canal until it was obtained by the Memorial Pegasus Museum, just down the road from the canal. Major John Howard wanted to get as close as possible to the bridge: his glider landed 47 yards from the bridge and cut through the barbed wire surrounding it. Both the Orne Canal and river bridges were taken in 10 minutes. The river bridge was taken without a shot being fired. After Pegasus Bridge we started to make our way along Sword, Juno and Gold beaches. Here I pointed out various actions that took place and the obstacles that were in place to make a seaborne invasion difficult. Gold beach was one end of Mulberry Harbour and stretched for 5 miles around to Arromanches. A visit was made to the British Normandy Memorial; it started with a suggestion from Normandy Veteran George Batts – a young soldier in the

Tuesday saw us visiting the British and Canadian beaches, as well as Breville Ridge. The first location was Breville Ridge, just outside the village of Breville, which was one of the drop zones used by 6th Airborne Division and was a vantage point. Rommel had visited the ridge on 30th May 1944 and realised that it could be used as a drop zone and ordered that ‘Rommel’s Asparagus’ should be installed, to prevent any landings. The Germans managed to hold onto the ridge until they were ‘removed’ on the 12th June 1944, after fierce fighting. From there we moved onto Ranville Church. The graveyard has 48 graves for Allied soldiers, one of whom is Den Brotheridge, the first soldier to be killed by enemy action on D-Day. Adjacent to the graveyard is the CWGC cemetery. It was a short ride then to Bénouville and Pegasus Bridge, or at least the replacement bridge, as the original one was removed in 1994 after the Orne

Royal Engineers on D-Day – when he met the BBC broadcaster Nicholas Witchell in July 2015. George pointed out that the United Kingdom, alone among the principal Allied nations of World War Two, did not have its own national memorial in Normandy recording the names of all those under British command who died on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy. We were fortunate in that the ‘Standing with Giants’ was still on display, but only until the Friday of the week of our visit. A total of 1,475 silhouettes by ‘Standing with Giants’ represents the number of fatalities under British command on 6 June 1944. This art installation was part of D-Day 80 commemorations at the Memorial. The American day started with a visit to the American cemetery at Colleville sur-Mer, which is a large site of 172.5 acres and is the final resting place for 9389 servicemen. The cemetery was used in the opening scenes of

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POLICE WORLD Vol 71 No.2, 2026