I've added a small update to an article on my rather amateurish but hopefully informative and accessible blog. Might be of interest to some. Germans up near Bréville-les-Mont, c.11th June 1944.
Cheers.
#Normandy44 #WW2
normandyinsightresearch.blogspot.com/p/346infante...
August 1944, a group of men from B Company, Argyll and Surherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's) search the houses at the southern end of St Lambert sur Dives, covered by a (to me unknown) Bren gunner who, along with the cameraman (Sgt Jack Stollery I believe) apparently doesn't give a fuck.
The same location today (October 2025)
Last regular tour tomorrow. Fittingly down where these chaps were doing their thing in the fight against Nazism.
#ThenAndNow #WW2 #Normandy44
Interesting read 👇
#WW2 #Normandy44
Some Antifa types feom the 83rd Infantry Division are welcomed by locals and their pets as they liberate the village of Montcuit after over four years of occupation
The same location today
Little has changed in Montcuit since 1944.
#ThenAndNow #WW2 #Normandy44
B/W photo taken in 1944. The barrel of a 57mm gun is facing two knocked out German motorcycle combinations and two similarly redundant SdKfz251 half tracks. Le Pont Brocard.
Same view and location in colour, taken 6/8/25
Soldiers from US 2nd Armd Div hiding behind a wall in le Pont Brocard.
Same location 7/8/25
Couple more #ThenAndNow photos from yesterday.
Germans trying to retreat running into trouble in the form of 2nd Armd Div. In particular S/Sgt Cermak's 57mm A/T gun, visible in the first photo.
Le Pont Brocard.
#WW2 #Normandy44
B/W photo of a knocked out German PzIV with two American tank crew examining it
Colour photo of the same location today
Oldie but goodie #ThenAndNow
81 years and a few days ago this PzIV (formerly of 2.SS-PzDiv) in St Denis le Gast.
#Normandy44 #WW2
Black and White photo of a Sherman Firefly moving through the village of Écouché in 1944, directed by a British soldier. And American watches the scene. No Germans are visible as they rather sensibly have vacated the area, albeit later than they should have.
Colour image from Google Earth Street View of the same scene.
Sometimes Google Earth is spot on.
Random searching through some US Signal Corps photos turned up this nice image of a Firefly in Écouché. Wondered if the building in the background was still there, plonked the Street View guy on one of the junctions et voilà....
#Normandy44 #ThenAndNow #WW2
Black and White photo of an M8 HMC (Howitzer Motor Carriage) from US 3rd Armored Division moving through the heavily damaged village of Montreuil-sur-Lozon.
Colour photo of the same place
Abortive trip to le Havre enabled a quick #Normandy44 #ThenAndNow on the way home.
M8 HMC from 3rd Armd Div in Montreuil-sur-Lozon.
Neat (if odd looking) little vehicles, these.
Traces of the provisional cemetery are visible bottom right. Around a quarter of the temporary markers have been replaced with the permanent marble ones. Plot E is just under halfway finished while plots G and I are done. The chapel and other memorials are yet to be built
Memorial Day in the USA.
This is the Normandy American Cemetery in September 1951.
More in ALT text.
📷 IGN
#Normandy44 #WW2 #memorialday
Refining overview of 🇬🇧 & 🇨🇦 forces during #Normandy44 for a 20-25 minutes ep
Trawling through 📸 for #inspiration (again)
🤔 the importance of Breville Ridge, #51HD #6Airborne
Little known, actions at Chateau St Come are examples of the importance of small unit actions to operational outcomes 💪
A Churchill tank drives down a track kicking up a shit load of dust as it does so. Normandy, 17 July 1944
For #TankTuesday here's a Churchill from 107 RAC doing its best to choke photographer Sgt Bert Hardy.
#WW2 #Normandy44
📷 IWM B7642
Almost obligatory #ThenAndNow when in this neck of the woods (le Molay-Littry).
You can see quite a nice 'ghosting' of this comparison in a neat little book called Normandy Ghosts.
#ShamelessPlug
#WW2 #Normandy44
Something nice for today.
This just arrived! As with Vol.1a, I thoroughly recommend this book. Outstanding job.
Complete with
*properly identified StuG*
Thank you and well done, @niels1944.bsky.social
When's Vol.2 coming out??😉
#Normandy44 #WW2
Seasonally flooded marshland
That time of year again....
This is the view across the flooded marais from the old church in Graignes. Two other churches on the other side, St. Côme du Mont (A) and Carentan (B).
#Normandy44 #WW2
This promises to be excellent and should help clarify a lot of the misunderstanding regarding certain formations.
#Normandy44 #WW2
Pretty much essential reading if you're interested in the Normandy Campaign.
A tremendous effort.
#Normandy44 #WW2
Aerial photo of a thoroughly destroyed town. Lots of bomb craters.
Map of the same area as the photo. Very few buildings are illustrated.
Photo and map from 1945 of Aunay-sur-Odon, with a remarkably intact church steeple.
Courtesy IGN and Calvados archives respectfully.
The neat little squares in the photo are piles of stacked rubble ready for recycling.
Almost 1/10 of the population died during the bombardments.
#WW2 #Normandy44
Knocked out tanks and other vehicles in a field used as a collection point.
Panthers and a horse-drawn cart. Remnants of the German Army in Normandy. The dump is the well-known one between Trun and St-Lambert-sur-Dive.
Still from this film, which has much interesting content.
imagesdefense.gouv.fr/fr/villages-...
#Normandy44 #WW2
Spitfire banking in a typically cloudy Normandy sky. Photo taken in 2019.
Busy-ish so not spent a lot of time here.
Here's a nice Spitfire from 2019 for no particular reason other than I like it.
Invasion stripes. Lovely. Helped defeat Nazism.
#WW2 #Normandy44
Coils of rusty German WW2 barbed wire, several hundred metres, in an old bunker. Tetanus jabs advisable.
Diagram showing dimensions of barbed wire. The barbs are less than an inch apart. Snagging potential fairly high.
Going through some stuff and here's a random photo of a load of German barbed wire in a bunker on the Cotentin coast from a few years back.
Plus a diagram should anyone wish to replicate it.
#WW2 #Normandy44
