Normandy, Day+70

XRCD011

XRCD011

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In 2014 I will be in Normandy from 1-8 June and then from the June 9-10-11 get some free time in East Sussex UK. While in Normandy I will have a GPW jeep or the Schwimmwagen and be staying at a cottage at Grandcamp-Maisy which is at the far west of the five landing beaches (Utah). So here are the questions, while we are driving up and down the beaches along the D514 and if my Milsurp radar detects any firearms (ie. local gun shops/surplus stores/collectors hoards) and I make a purchase of a NR rifle can I just mail it home from France?? If I do purchase any rifle it certainly will not go to the UK on the ferry with me.
Next question is things to see in my three days. As I will have a rental car and be without the wife and my son I can really hit all the tank and plane museums and being within 40 minutes want to see the Dover cliffs and Castle Dover. Other things I want to see are 1. Bovington Tank Museum over in Dorset (looks like that will eat up a day+ in time alone in traveling and sightseeing). 2.Beaulieu motor museum (near Bovington) 3. Duxford AC museum and maybe Tangmere and 4. Hendon RAF museum. My idea is to see as much guy stuff (trucks/tanks and planes) as possible with touristy/cultural stuff like Leeds Castle, Buckingham Palace, etc done with the family unit at a later date. What else is recommended to see or cool Milsurp places to haunt?
 
You will NOT find any surplus arms for sale in France as military calibers for civilians are banned. You can find some MAS 36 in 7-08 as well as other more modern milsurp in non original calibers. You cannot bring any firearm into the UK without a possessing a permit beforehand. The French have a good tank museum in Namur. But Bovington is the biggest tank museum and the most diverse. One must visit the Imperial War Museum. To visit what you want to visit in the UK would take more than a full week!
Henry
 
2nd, no live original legal guns floating around for sale. ou might make a closet find, but good luck getting it out. While i was in France all I found was a dewat Mp40, Stg44, dp28, bren and 2 thompsons, but were expensive and I dont want dewats.

I just did some DDay stuff in Sept.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php/974022-DDAY-and-Germany-pics-56k-DEATH

I would highly recommend the battery at Longues sur Mer, and I really enjoyed the Vimoutiers Tiger Tank.

Driving from Juno Beach to Longues usr Mer is only a short distance and you can view non touristy bunkers and such in fields and along other beaches. Id have to say it kind of blew my mind, its amazing.

Juno beach is neat as its where the canadians landed, the museum there is decent, and they have a good size bunker you can tour, also walking along the beach there are other bunkers just sitting there, you can go explore.
 
XRCD011 said:
In 2014 I will be in Normandy from 1-8 June and then from the June 9-10-11 get some free time in East Sussex UK. While in Normandy I will have a GPW jeep or the Schwimmwagen and be staying at a cottage at Grandcamp-Maisy which is at the far west of the five landing beaches (Utah). ... What else is recommended to see or cool Milsurp places to haunt?
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I can't think of any better view than Normandy in a GPW, except maybe in a Schwimmwagen!

Seriously, there are collectors with private museums all over NW Europe. If you are sincere about picking up milsurps, that is probably the best place to find historic military vehicles. There is a famous tank rally in Mons called Tanks In Town, where everything imaginable pounds the heck out of forest trails. Imagine War and Peace / Beltring in the woods.
 
Try and go to Dover Castle - there's some pretty cool stuff down in the "secret" tunnels where there was a ton of Naval Intel stuff going on during the war.
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
I can't think of any better view than Normandy in a GPW, except maybe in a Schwimmwagen!

Seriously, there are collectors with private museums all over NW Europe. If you are sincere about picking up milsurps, that is probably the best place to find historic military vehicles. There is a famous tank rally in Mons called Tanks In Town, where everything imaginable pounds the heck out of forest trails. Imagine War and Peace / Beltring in the woods.
Click to expand...

I am such a lucky guy with my buds in the UK. This is shaping up to be my Dream Vacation. I fly into Heathrow take umpteen trains and spend the night at my hosts place sort out vehicles and the next day we convoy out from Sussex to Portsmouth with three jeeps and a schwimmwagen (trailered) we could have had a kettenkrad also but its not ready yet. I will have a GPW (or the 166) and we drive back lanes for three hours and board the Portsmouth ferry for the crossing over to Caen(Ouistreham) then continue across the beaches to GCM in the west. A week of driving around tin WW2 vehicles taking in the sights before the Day of Days on the 6th. Post Normandy ferry and drive back to UK/Sussex pick up a rental and cover as much ground as possible before coming home. I figure this will be a two week beer and caffeine fueled adventure. Anyone else heading over?
 
The "Peace Museum" in Caan, the "Flanders Field Museum" in Ypres and the "La Cupolae" near St. Omer are definitely worth seeing and leaving the coast for.
 
Sk8r has it as regards Dover Castle. This little piece of England has guarded the island for 3000 years before the word "England" was even invented.

It is the last of the hill-forts from the age of the Beaker Folk and the Battle Axe People.

Here, the Old Folk awaited the Keltoi, Kelts awaited the Romans under Caesar and under Claudius a century later, here the Angles and Saxons and Jutes arrived and stayed after their "visit" with Vortigern and here they awaited the Normans, 600 years later. 500 years after that, their descendants awaited the Spanish and 200 year later they awaited the armies of Napoleon and 100 years after that our parents and grandparents and cousins awaited SEELOEWE. All of these armies and wars left their traces and you can still see them if you know what to look for. The Channel Guns are still in the cliffs below, Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol still guards the Channel as it has for 400 years now and Dover Castle is still a military base in law, as it has been for the last 30 centuries now.

You can stand in a Roman lighthouse or pray where the Lion-heart prayed when he went off on Crusade or where Charles II prayed at the Restoration.... and the Royal chapel is maintained today. This is where "that heroic Mister Bleriot" crashed his flimsy airplane and shrank the world.... and the last of the Chain Home radar antennae is just a few hundred yards to the East. This is Battle of Britain country.

And there is a musket rose. You just can NOT miss that.

I saw a part of Dover Castle 35 years ago and cannot forget it. Take you a week to see it all, drink it in. Take a lifetime to UNDERSTAND it.

Go.
 
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Imperial War Museum is very good. Last time I was there was more than a decade ago, but besides all the artifacts on display they had a mock-up of a WWI entrenchment and WWII bombed out London street with an ARP Warden to take you down into a bomb shelter with sound effects and hydraulics to simulate the shaking. Under Whitehall the bunker system that PM Churchill and the War Cabinet used was opened, and Dover Castle itself is worth a visit as is the WWII tunnel system there that housed the Channel command. In East Sussex the port of Newhaven has an old fort that was open, Napoleonic era if I recall correctly, and it was a major embarkation port for Canadians on Op Jubilee (Dieppe raid.) There was a ferry service to Dieppe when I lived there and I once took the crossing that departed at something like three in the morning so I got into Dieppe at dawn to start a motorcycle camping trip to the D-Day landing area.

In Cambridge there was a pub with eagle in its name, perhaps The Eagle or the Spread Eagle, which was popular with WWII pilots, and when I lived there in the 1980s they hadn't cleaned the wooden ceiling since then because the pilots used to write their names on it by staining it with candle smoke. Probably hasn't changed.

If you get to Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed in in 1215, that's more to think about than the open meadow to look at, but bonus: there is a Commonwealth Aircrew memorial adjacent and you can go read the names of some Canadians who took off to fight and were never recovered.

HMS Belfast is a WWII cruiser that took part in Op Overlord. She is open for visitors, moored by Tower Bridge in London. The old naval dockyards at Chatham in Kent are now a museum covering centruries of shipbuilding, and an O class submarine moored there is also open for visitors. The O class is what our navy had before our current submarines.
 
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I second the Imperial War Museum and Dover Castle, and if you have the time go check out the Royal Tank Museum in Dorset they have a wide range of fun stuff everything from little willy to the Challenger. They even have a couple Ram tanks.

Also don't forget to just wander around some of the mom and pop shops have some very interesting stuff. I bumped into a picture of one of my great uncle's unit during WW1 out on Salisbury Plains at one such store but didn't pick it up stupid me.

enjoy the trip you lucky duck
 
Don't forget the National Army Museum in London on old Chelsea hospital road. Well worth the visit and some rather rare objects there. Short walk up the street from the tube stop and again, well worth the visit. The Imperial is still the premier muse' but even the tower is mind-boggling if into early kit. Just remember that even the Vickers is now over 100 years old.
The military museum in Paris at Invalides is also well worth the trip and again a lot of rather rare and exotic kit on display.
You will never see more than 1/10 of 1% of the military museums in England or France so don't even try to do them all.
 
Sounds like a superb trip...Your going to have a great time...There's SO much to see its important to pick and choose carefully..I was brought up in South London and my Dad was RAF, so I was always going here and there to various museums and places of interest (3 trips to Normandy, Arnhem and 1 to Ypres, Somme and Vimy)
Just to add to those suggestions already posted, I would add the Le Mesnil crossroads and the Merville Battery in Normandy due to its connections with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Some of the nearby cemeteries will bring a lump to the throat. The allied cemetery at Bayeaux and the American cemetery at Omaha will leave indelible memories. Point Du Hoc and Arromanches will certainly already be on your list.
Three days back in West Sussex doesn't give you much time. It will take you a couple of hours drive to Duxford (definately a must do) and its a full (long) day there. Bovingdon is excellent but quite a drive from West Sussex...If you have time in Portsmouth a visit to the dockyard (HMS Victory) is a trip back in time. If you do get up to London then I would also add the underground 'Cabinet War Rooms' near Downing Street...Its easy to picture Churchill at his desk smoking a cigar:)
Now that I'm writing about it I really want to come along:)
SO many things to see and such little time....Plan carefully..Best of luck..
 
I found the areas of the Paras to have the best museums, usually privately run, and generally had a better feel to it. St. Mere Iglise, Pegasus Bridge, to name two off the top of my head. I did not like the big museum in Caen - it was just too spit and polish and similar to a museum we would have here. Omaha and Juno Beach, and Pointe De Hoc, best sites for landing stuff (though both these beaches are heavily touristed). The British beaches - almost nothing to see except the remains of the mulberry. Very unfortunate.
I have done two runs in France for historical tours and I thought the WW1 areas were better. Little has changed...they were fields then and fields now. Besides the Somme has a cemetery or a monument every 2mins, you can spend a week just in that area on a bike and still not see everything. The area near Caen/Normandy has changed a lot with a new superhighway. Trying to piece together the battle with WW2 maps was tough going. It was easier towards Utah beach as little has changed in bocage country. I also went with a German friend and we visited some German sites. They were quite interesting as they are off the beaten track a bit, less visited, and quite somber.
 
Ohh man, so much to see and so little time. So far in Normandy its all the beaches /parades/museums/vehicles (apparently Normandy is a big draw for milvehs from across Europe), bunkers and connect with people in Europe I have emailed with over the years, and generally be a history glutton for all things invasion related. The rental cottage is within a stones throw of Utah beach. Arriving back in the UK by ferry on the 9th drive back to Tunbridge Wells get a rental car and hit the road. Dover/cliffs/Dover Castle Smellie what is this Musket Rose (if you recommend seeing it, I will) that you mention ? Mary Rose and HMS Victory in Portsmouth on the way to Bovington in Dorset. Anyways I have three days in the UK to jam a couple hundred or thousand years of history into. Expect many pics guys.
 
If your definately going to Dover, then the Battle of Britain memorial is very close at Capel Le Ferne.....Just a one hour visit would be enough..The panel lists some well known Canadian's who fought during the battle....
 
The aviation museum at Duxford is well worth the drive. They have lots of aircraft but also a massive hangar full of armour, small weapons displays, etc. As was mentioned the Cloth Hall or Flanders Field museum at Ypres is another stop worth making. To spend a couple days in Ypres, Iper, or however they spell it today is something I'm sure you'll remember for a long time. You can rent a bicycle and spend hours exploring Flanders. So many choices...
Greg
 
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