1944, Normandy. The sky is grey and the fog is compact. The night is dark. The wind blows but somehow, the most intrepid of all men decided on their own to jump over France. It is the 5th of June, and some of them will never see their homeland again. But in the name of Freedom and Democracy, they decided it was their duty to help those who are oppressed.
The museum is a monument in the name of those who decided to jump above Normandy and land at the beaches. It is a monument for those who made possible what would later lead to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Fascism in Europe.
What is the Arromanches Museum about?
Why would you go to this museum in the first place? Well, it is nearby all the bridgeheads of the Normandy landings.
If you start your journey from Utah Beach, the most western of all the beaches, you’ll have the luck to go across all the beaches from West to East and the final stage in this trip is naturally, Arromanches, which was a crucial point during the Liberation of France. Or if you take the trip in the other way around, it is the first necessary stop on your way to knowledge.
The museum has two particulars addressed subjects: the first one is as you guessed, the Normandy landings and the second one is the Mulberry Harbor. This harbor was capital for the landings as the Dieppe Landing (1942) proved that the Allies couldn’t not breach the Atlantic Wall to capture a harbor. Even though the Allies finally captured Cherbourg and its precious harbor, the Mulberry harbor was still in use for 10 months after the initial landings. More than 2,500,000 men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies landed in the harbor.
But why would you buy a museum just by this particular site? French President René Coty pushed hard in the 1950s for a museum to be built in the area, to show the magnificent war effort that was done just for the landings and to help supply the troops that were liberating France.
So as you guessed, in this museum, you will have the luck to see everything about the harbor. You will enter first a big room where you will see a mock up of the harbor. Every aspect of the harbor and how it worked is detailed on this mock up that is around 20 meters long!
You can find many other things in the museum. You’ll find different uniforms used by the troops of both sides, some rifles, some German equipment… There is also a movie describing the Normandy landing and the role of the Harbor, its conception and the strategic importance it had.
At the end of your tour in the museum, you will of course happen to land… in a souvenir shop like every museum in the world. Outside the museum, and next to the usual flags that you can find pretty much all across the Normandy coast, you will find some interesting pieces of artillery, from both England and Germany.
Outside the museum…
Not only you should go to the museum for all the things you can learn inside the museum, but the most important thing in Arromanches is the scenery offered to the visitor. Not only Arromanches is a beautiful city on the Channel Coast, but the sea is just by the museum, on the shore.
The most impressing thing in all of that is that ashore, you can still see what used to be a harbor. As Lord Mountbatten said: “If we dispose of no harbors, we will bring our own.”
The gigantic dockyard that was used to pour equipment through the Channel and into France was located in the bay of Arromanches, just ashore of the museum! If the tide is low, you can even walk to the remains of the harbor! You’ll happen to find gigantic pieces of concrete that could float, and that was used as pontoons, going back and forth with the tide.
The remains of the harbor give you an idea of how enormous what the Allies decided to do. They didn’t bother asking themselves which sea harbor would be the best between Cherbourg, Le Havre or many more. They just built their own harbor in the middle of basically nowhere, in the only place where the shore is not a cliff in the area. The things you can discover inside the museum are truly interesting and is an important stop on your way to history and how everything happened. But outside, you can truly appreciate the effort that was done to help and supports the troops fighting Nazi Germany inland.
The Mulberry Harbour of Arromanches was of strategic importance, and there was no way Germany could disrupt its effort in any manner, considering the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine had no way to interfere. They could always sabotage the harbors they were holding such as what happened in Cherbourg, but the Mulberry of Arromanches stood and, it was one of the most important points of the Allies invasion of Western Europe.
The point of this museum is as stated before, not to be the most precise or detailed one, but to be a monument. A monument dedicated to the people who decided to do the impossible, the unthinkable. They decided to go for it, to liberate Europe from Fascism and Nazism. It is dedicated to those who thought and built the Mulberrys. Those who decided to fight for Freedom.
Guest Contributor: Kjetil Vion is a writer and a history enthusiast. A passionate of France and modern military history, he has a special interest into the Prussian state, specially since the Sadowa battle against Austria. Always wanting to learn more, he now looks to spread his knowledge in history.
