I will arrive in Paris on June 3. I am going to spent the night of June 3 and 4 in Paris and catch the train to Carentan on June 5 where I have a rental car reserved. I have a reservation at a B&B the nights of June 5 and 6. I will arrive at the Farmhouse late afternoon on June 7. I will catch the train back to Paris on June 12. Looking forward to meeting all of you. Chuck
Thanks Chuck, Everyone who is going should have their plans finalised by now, so can I ask for final confirmation if A) you want to stay at farmhouse and B) if not staying with us, do you want to hook up for site visits? Thanks, Pat
Hi everyone, I had made complete payment on the Farmhouse and it was confirmed received on Monday April 23rd by the owner. We have the Farmhouse from June 7th to June 17th and the owner will be in touch with me in the next few weeks with the gate and door key codes. I will arrive the afternoon of the 7th about 3-4pm I estimate. John
Pat and John. I have all my reservations and plan to stay at the Farmhouse June 7-11. Hope this is ok. I can write a check to a John while we are there or when we get back to US. Thanks. Chuck
I hope you all will enjoy the meet. I'm afraid I'll be unable to make it myself. Maybe I'll drop in via Skype or something ;-) For those of you relying on public transportation, please note that there are ongoing railroad strikes in the period of April-June. Although the strikes are limited to two or three days a week, they apparently can affect the entire train schedule on the other days as well. For more information I recommend Info about the strike in France There is still a lot of uncertainty for June so hopefully the situation will have improved by then.
Hi All, So we are less than a month away and I think we have Pat and his son, Chuck, and myself staying at the Farmhouse. Neil will be right next door until the 10th with Pat and Chuck leaving on the 12th, and I am there until the 17th. KGM, if he can make it, may only be there for the glider tour on the 9th. Are we missing anyone who we have not heard from ? Niels, It would be great to see you if you were able to make it, but I know you have a prior commitment. I'd enjoy discussing armor, batteries, and possible locations if you did. Sean, how much availability will you have at least up to the 12th ? I'm still hoping for those who cannot make it, to give me some specific location photo requests... John
John, With what appears to be just four of us staying at the farmhouse, I have texted a couple of the guys I brought out last time to see if they are interested. Will keep you updated. Anyone interested in taking Jan Foster up on her offer to attempt getting us a private tour of the Marauder at Utah Beach Museum. I plan on going to see it anyway. Regards, Pat
Hi All, It just occurred to me that we should set up a closed texting ring on our phones. I seems WhatsApp is the app of choice. Does anyone have a phone which will not work this app? Thanks, Pat
OK, I just created a whatsApp group called Whitebeam Battlefield. I don't have any of you in my phone contacts so if you want in, please send send your numder, including country code, to me via a PM or email. Regards, Pat
Hi Pat, Anybody that wants to attend is very welcome! Do you happen to know if a potential tour of the Marauder gets us on board? I would love to take some photos from inside since my ex wife's grandfather flew B-26's with the 322nd BG, 451st BS. Otherwise, if we are seeing it from the outside, I'm not sure it matters if it is privately or publicly as everyone else does. My worry about the phone app is that my international roaming charges would be crazy high and I currently only intend on turning on my phone for brief moments to check messages. In fact I told my daughter and friends to contact me by facebook if they needed to get a hold of me since we have internet service at the farmhouse. I will have to look further into my cell carrier to see what international programs they can offer me. Also when I get the property access codes from the farmhouse owner in the next couple weeks, I will email them to those attending. John
John, I understand your concern and will look into this also. Just been PMing with 'Gennaker' and he wants to join us at the farmhouse, so one more! Pat
Hi John, I am coming up with some glider crash locations that I would like to photograph if I were there. I appreciate your offer to do my picture-taking. All of the shots I am interested in fall in the area between SME and Beuzeville au Plain. I will identify these locations of interest over the next few days. The first location is well known glider crash photographed by Kenny Knotts on the D15 coming in to and out of SME. That image is below: Here we see the wooden shed on the right, with glider debris on both sides of the road. Next is an image showing the general area of the crash: Obviously, this is the full zoomed out version of the image above. Can see the shed, but not much else. The zoomed in version follows: The shed and glider parts are clearly seen. Parts of the glider showing invasions stripes are visible on both sides of the road. This area has been developed much since 1944. As you can see, there are two other crash sites in the zoomed in version. One is in the upper right hand portion of the frame.There appears to be invasion striping on the crash remains there. The other crash site is pretty much directly above where the Knotts photo was taken. Across the D15, and a smaller road, there is clearly a glider that has landed into what I assume is an orchard of some sort. It seems unusual that there are no invasion stripes visible. I don't think you would have difficulty taking a pic from the D15, of the area of the Knotts photo, since it would be taken from the road. The other two, however, would be difficult due to years of development. For the record, the following are the coordinates of the 3 glider crash scenes in this frame: Knotts photo: 49 24 45.03 N 1 18 53.94 W Crash scene in upper right of frame: 49 24 49.01 N 1 18 50.92 W Orchard crash scene: 49 24 49.57 N 1 18 55.24 W The next area that would interest me would be shown on NCAP US30_ 4108_1001. Below is a somewhat zoomed in copy of this frame: The yellow arrow points to my area of interest here. We are looking at a portion of the south-east section of the "big field." The following is a further enhancement of the glider in question: This image shows what I take to be a glider crash site at the intersection of D115 and a hedgerow or farm road. A look at the Google view of this area shows, I think, that the hedgerow or farm road is still in place: That's about all for now. I will get some other locations to you in the next few days. Thanks again. Charles
Hi Charles, I will be sure to get you these photos my friend. I will do my best to get an exact match of the Kenny Knotts photo, and I will even stand on my car to get the same angle. I will likely have several dozen others for you just on the other locations alone. Make sure you keep your areas of interest coming !!! John
Charles, Just so you know, I had plotted these on the Gliders in Normandy map this is where those gliders would be today. I circled the 3 Horsas, and put an arrow in the direction of the Kenny Knotts photo so you can see where the photos are. John
Well John, It looks like you are well organized for the trip. And prepared for some serious photography. The next three gliders that I am interested in again fall within the NCAP US30 4108 1001. First, the wide view: And the fully zoomed in version: The three gliders are, from top to bottom, The horsa glider partially under a tree, the horsa apparently well into a hedgerow, and a horsa into a hedgerow and very close to a road. These gliders have been discussed earlier and show up pretty well. You might be able to get a shot of the area where the glider under a tree was, from the D17 that runs just along side of the property where the crash occurred. The Bing maps view of this site does not show the large tree that we see in the NCAP photo. The other two glider crash sites might be hard to photograph, if you are not allowed on what looked like a road in the NCAP image, but which I am not sure is still there now. I do see that you have accounted for these gliders on your map. I'll get back later with some other sites. Charles
Hi Charles, I will do what I can to get photos of these locations for you, with the one closest to the D17 road furthest north being pretty easy to get. The other 2 locations may be more difficult to get because they appear to be on a gated private path into the fields. The location in the middle of the 3, I actually did not identify as a complete Horsa, but as the left wing lying upside down of the one north near the D17 road. Either way, if I am able to access the area, I will get all 3 locations. John
John, I think that just about anything you can do in the case of the above 3 locations should be fine. I agree that the area where the Horsa ended up under the tree, is the only spot that might be easy to reach. The image below is familiar to most, but for the record, it shows the intersection of the La Londe farm road and the D17: We can see the Hoatson glider on the D17, and have had many great looks at this crash site from the ground. It might be a good place for a group picture. What I would ask you to photograph, is the location of the Apple Orchard Horsa, that is shown in bottom right quadrant of the field just across the road from the Hoatson crash. Both Google and Bing Maps show that field to be empty. Google was photographed in 2015; I don't know about Bing. So, the picture may be just of an empty field. A good ground shot of this Horsa was submitted by Pat some time ago, and follows: I'm still looking for a couple more sites, and will get back to you shortly. Charles
Charles, I'm sure I could do a group photo at La Londe with a then and now of the Hoatson Horsa behind us.