This is France. As such our trip has been characterised by eating, eating and more eating. I did skip lunch yesterday as I knew I needed to be match fit for Chez Roger last night. Rog came up trumps. You didn’t know what you were getting until the dish turned up at the table. Not a single dud and apart from the lamb’s sweetbread no meat.
Today looks promising weatherwise. Yesterday we followed the Band of Brothers route from the point where Lt Meehan’s plane crashed, the field where Dick Winters landed (although we couldn’t access the actual field which required us to fo down a road that let us know in no uncertain terms that it was private), where he met Lipton, the road out of St mere Eglise to the ambush point, then on to Le Grand Chemin and Brecourt Manor. Although the field at Brecourt where the guns were positioned is full of cows and surrounded by barbed wire you could still get to the end of the hedgerow which was right by a gate.
On from Brecourt to Culloville where they spent the night on 6th June and then to Vieirville and Angoville au Plain. Saw the blood on the pews in the church there and the cracked flagstone where the mortar landed.
After Angoville au Plain we called it a day but did head towards Carentan past Dead Man’s Corner and Purple Heart Lane crossing the bridge over the river Douve used by Easy Co before the they swung right to get into position for the attack on the morning of 12th June.
Today we are headed back to the bridge outside Carentan as the plan is to photograph all the main points of action ending up at Bloody Gulch. I have all the locations pinned on google maps and will publish it once I’m satisfied I’ve got it as accurate as I can.