Day 9 – Wednesday 7th June A walk around Estry This morning we spent time looking around the village of Estry as Colin wanted to take photographs of the locations of damaged and destroyed Churchill tanks following the battle to liberate the village as he needed this for his war gaming group and his military […]
By ColinAuthor | Also posted in Flt Lt John W Harder, M/Sgt Morris Sheppard, Major Ray Elledge Jnr, Normandy Trips, Pvt Gerald Willen | Tagged Estry, Francis Gillespie, John Harder, Morris Sheppard, Ray Elledge, Tilly sur Seulles, Tony & Jill Stansfield | Day 4 – Friday 2nd June Mixing history An early start saw us arrive at the Eurotunnel terminal with the ability of catching the train prior to our scheduled one. This enabled us, once in France, to spend an hour walking around Cap Griz Nez, taking photographs of both the later German installations but also […]
German Military Cemetery at Marigny Initially, we’d planned to use this day checking out again Ray Elledge’s crash site where we would have dug up some of the metal. However, as this had now been confirmed as not a crash site, we decided to do something different and decided to head off to Coutances as […]
December 17, 2013 – 9:45 pm Presentations and P47s in Normandy With Peter Findlay So, as is usual on these trips, we got up in the morning & immediately amended the plans that we had for the day! The reason for this was that Peter Findlay, one of our hosts, was being honoured with the presentation of a medal from the […]
September 8, 2012 – 3:46 pm This was quite a busy day, covering Operation EPSOM, the “Scottish Corridor” and Hill 112 and then on the trail of Ray Elledge and Francis Gillespie with some “Calvados hunting” in between. Operation EPSOM, the “Scottish Corridor” and Hill 112 Last year, we had visited the “shoulder” of the Operation EPSOM battlefield when we took a look around Rauray & […]
By ColinAuthor | Also posted in M/Sgt Morris Sheppard, Major Ray Elledge Jnr, Normandy Trips | Tagged 15th Scottish Division, 404th Fighter Group, 43rd Wessex Division, Advance Landing Ground, Albert Figg, Bayeux, Bill Sullivan, Caen, Calvados, Cheux, Churchill Tank, D Day, Eroudeville, Evrecy, Francis Gillespie, Hill 112, Ian Daglish, Jerusalem CWGC, La Chippelle, Milweb, Morris Sheppard, Musee la Percee du Bocage, Nigel Hay, Normandy, Operation BLUECOAT, Operation EPSOM, Operation JUPITER, Ray Elledge, River Odon, Sainte Mere Eglise, Scottish Corridor, Tourmauville, Tourville, Winkton | This year’s trip was always going to have the opportunity to be special ever since earlier in the year when I’d received an email from Jesse Sheppard (Grandson of Morris Sheppard, one of the “names” in the Shed). The anticipation was increased once it also looked as ‘though Jim, Jesse’s father & Morris’ son would […]
Friday 24th July Flt Lt John Worthington Harder We (Glyn, Benoît (our translator – local lad interested in local history & with very good English) and me) set out on our 2 hour drive (having driven over 8 to get to “the Shed” the day before!) down to Evron, the town where John had crashed […]