To Caen and back

On Monday I travelled to France and back, without actually setting foot in France!

To go back to the start of the story, my employers very kindly asked me to give a lecture onboard Brittany Ferries MV Normandie, on the route between Portsmouth and Ouistreham-Caen. I gave a talk on my book ‘Portsmouth’s World War Two Heroes’ on each leg. It wasn’t actually worth me getting off the boat while it was docked at Ouistreham, so I stayed in my cabin and took some pictures of the gorgeous looking beach. Of course, those sands formed part of Sword beach on 6 June 1944.

Both talks were very well received. It is a new venture that Brittany are trialling, and it seems to have been appreciated by many people who attended. It was also a new experience for me, as I had never sailed on this route before. Hence for the first time I was able to take pictures, up on deck, of the warships in Pompey Harbour, and also experience sailing out past the Round Tower, down past the Solent forts, then round Bembridge ledge and past the round tower.

HMS Bristol

ex HMS Liverpool and ex HMS Ark Royal

a Batch 3 Type 42, Endurance and Illustrious

USS Normandy

mid-Channel on the way out

Ouistreham. The beach was part of Sword beach on D-Day

mid-Channel on the way back

late evening sun off the Isle of Wight

 

Wellington and Montgomery: General swapping?

Mont... sorry, the Duke of Wellington (Image via Wikipedia)

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the Battle of Normandy recently for my forthcoming book. And I have always been a big fan of Wellington.

Which got me thinking – what if Wellington had fought the battle of Waterloo in the style of Monty? And what if Wellington had been in command in the summer of 1944?

Montgomery after Waterloo:

Montgomery: ‘the battle went exactly as I planned. I fully intended to draw the French reserves onto my front, thus allowing the Prussians to arrive unhindered. Hougoumont was not important as long as I pretended to hold it. At all times I was in complete control of the situation. We will no crack-about south of Caen’.

At which point Blucher is mortally offended, and Prussian historians spend hundreds of years belittling his every move. Meanwhile, German film-makers all but obliterate Montgomery and the British from Waterloo, apart from oblique and stereotypical references.

Almost one hundred and 30 years later, at the St Pauls School Conference in May 1944…

Wellington, to the assembled crowd of Allied senior officers, politicians and King George VI: ‘what I intend to do depends on what Rommel intends to do, and as the Desert Fox has not informed me of his plans, then I cannot inform you of mine’

At Southwick House, 5 June 1944…

Eisenhower: ‘so Wellington, what are your plans?’
Wellington: ‘to beat the Germans’

Actually, were Wellington and Montgomery really that different? The only difference to me seems to be that American historians have had no reason to villify Wellington. Even so, during his lifetime Wellington was ridiculed and lambasted for both his adulterous affairs and his politics. Time, however, tends to see petty criticisms fall away and victories stand the test of time.

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