2003-02-27 - 6:34 p.m.
No better place to start a D-Day beaches tour than at Pegasus Bridge. This is the site of the first action of D-Day that began around 3AM on June 6th. British gliders landed in this area 50 yards from the actual bridge. Their mission was to take the bridge by force, remove explosives that the Germans had placed underneath it, and then hold the bridge until reinforcements arrived.
The film "The Longest Day" (John Wayne et al.) does a good job at portraying this scene and also Stephen Ambrose wrote a very detailed and interesting book about the battle called "Pegasus Bridge."
Here is a picture of the bridge with a howitzer (I think) in the forground. 
And here is the bridge today. 
The Germans hadn't fortified this bridge as heavily as one would have thought. There was only one heavy artillary piece in place along with a few heavy machine guns. Here is one of the heavy artillary pieces (looks like a 50 cal or a 7.62mm). 
Also on the site, they had a British tank. Here are a couple of pictures of it. It isn't as large as I would have thought. 
Randomly, here is an English telephone booth that I passed along the way. 
