Return to EPSOM

The day started with some more photos of the Operation EPSOM area – necessary as I’d not taken all of the ones that I wanted before my camera battery had died realier in the week. So, fully charged we set off again.

The start point was where we’d left off – the small hamlet of Rauray, the scene of some bitter fighting, attacks & counter-attacks on 1^st July 1944. For real detail of that battle with a “blow by blow” account, Kevin Baverstock’s book “Breaking the Panzers” is a definite recommendation.

We then moved on to the “EPSOM” area “proper” (Operation MARTLET which included the Rauray battle was designed to protect the right flank of EPSOM) & visited the location where some German tanks hid behind some bushes to try to stop the British advance.

BLUECOAT Battlefield tour

A few more photos at other key locations – and it was time to head off to Beny Bocage to meet up with David & Jeanette Mabbutt & Colin Yates’ part for a Battlefield Tour.

They took a bit of finding at first as the WW2 vehicle rally that we’d agreed to meet at was not taking place at its usual venue, but a bit of good luck saw us arrive in time.

It’s quite amazing the various restored vehicles that people find & bring back to wartime condition… and then keep running, ‘though it is, largely, I think, a rich person’s hobby given how much fuel some of the vehicles use.

So, in convoy, we set off towards some of the southern locations of Operation BLUECOAT where Colin Yates had served. We ended up at Michel Letenturier’s home – Michel had written a book detailing the actions of the Guards Armoured Division & 6^th Guards Tank Brigade during Operation BLUECOAT including a detailed explanation of a battle that took place in his back garden between some Self-propelled Sexton guns of the British and some German Panther tanks that had no right being there! Such was the confusion of some of the fighting.

We ended up visiting a tree that Eain & Muir Findlay had planted a number of years ago in memory of Archie Garland – a crew member of Muir Findlay’s tank SKYE

And then back to base