All day guided tour of the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy in a small group (1-15), with lunch and transport from Paris

Overview

A thirteen-hour guided day from Paris to the Normandy landing beaches in a group capped at fifteen, with a licensed D-Day guide, a two-course lunch at Arromanches and time at Pointe du Hoc, Omaha, Juno and the American cemetery.

What to expect

• An early start from Paris in an air-conditioned coach, no more than fifteen of you.
• Around three hours on the road each way.
• Pointe du Hoc: the clifftop, the cratered ground, the Channel below.
• Omaha Beach, walked, with time on the sand.
• The American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer above it.
• Arromanches: lunch, the town, and the harbour remains offshore.
• Juno Beach and the Canadian sector.

The Germans knew an invasion was coming and still lost the argument

Everyone expected a landing in 1944. The question was where, and the Allies spent eighteen months making sure the answer Berlin arrived at was wrong.

The short crossing to the Pas-de-Calais was the obvious choice — closest to England, closest to Germany, best ports. So an entire army group was invented and parked in south-east England opposite it. On paper it was a formation of enormous strength under a general the Germans rated highly. On the ground it was dummy landing craft, inflatable tanks, painted plywood and a handful of wireless operators generating the radio traffic that a real army of that size would produce.

The most important spy of the war reported to both sides

Feeding the picture to Berlin was a Spaniard who had volunteered to spy for Germany and immediately offered his services to Britain instead. Trusted by his German handlers, he built a network of some two dozen sub-agents across Britain, all of them fictional, and filed a stream of reports that were accurate in every detail that did not matter.

His masterpiece came days after the landings. He signalled that Normandy was the feint and the real assault on the Pas-de-Calais was still to come. The German high command believed him, and armoured divisions that could have reached the beachhead in a day were held in place instead, waiting for an invasion that did not exist.

He finished the war decorated by both governments, neither of which knew the other had done it.

What that means for the ground you are standing on

The beachhead survived its first weeks because of divisions that never arrived. The German Fifteenth Army sat in the Pas-de-Calais through the fighting here, in strength, waiting.

So the terrain in front of you is only half the story. The other half is what was successfully kept two hundred kilometres away, by men with inflatable tanks and a spy running an imaginary staff.

Why fifteen people rather than fifty

A cliff path and a cemetery are not places to be shouted at over a crowd. Capping the group is the difference between hearing a guide and following one.

It also changes what you can ask. The questions that arise standing on Omaha are not the ones prepared in advance, and a group of this size leaves room for them.

Practicalities

Lunch at Arromanches is included — two courses with a drink. Let us know in advance about dietary requirements.

Thirteen hours, roughly six of them on the coach, is what four sites strung along this coast demand in a single day.

The clifftop ground at Pointe du Hoc is uneven and the coast is exposed, so bring a layer that handles wind.