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Cranston Fine Arts  Landscape Art and Artists Countries France  Caen Canal |
[UP] - Cities - Normandy - River Seine - River Loire - Mont-Saint-Michel - Porte D'Aval - Boulevard de la Madeleine - Pegasus Bridge - Pont d'Argenteuil - Pont National - Caen Canal |
| Caen Canal Landscape Art Prints, Paintings and Drawings |
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| Text for the above items : |
Tactical Support by Richard Taylor. With bright yellow spinners and distinctive twin-booms glinting in the June sunshine, two P-38 Lockheed Lightnings of the USAAFs 79th Fighter Squadron, 20th Fighter Group hurtle low over Pegasus Bridge as they race across the Normandy landscape shortly after the D-Day landings, June 1944. Flying from their base at Kings Cliffe in Cambridgeshire they have today been tasked to support the advancing allied forces; they will strafe and bomb the enemy lines, destroying enemy communications, armour and ground targets, causing as much chaos and disruption as they can. Dangerous work, these low-level missions, but tasks that the tough P-38 pilots relish. A few days before, the bridge below had witnessed a very different scene. The first action on D-Day happened here when, moments after midnight on the night of 5th - 6th June, three gliders swooped silently from the sky to land within yards of their target - this vital road bridge across the Caen canal. Major John Howard and men of the 6th British Airborne Division were to seize and hold this strategic point. After a brief but furious fire-fight the stunned German defenders were overwhelmed and the bridge captured. The Invasion of France had begun, and for the Germans it was the beginning of the end. Hitlers much vaunted armies had begun their slow bitter retreat to the end that was the burning hell of Berlin. When it came to hammering German ground forces in the days after D-Day, Lockheeds outstanding P-38 Lightning gained an awesome reputation. Richard Taylors evocative new painting recreates the scene over Pegasus Bridge shortly after D-Day as a pair of P-38 Lightnings thunder inland in support of the advancing allied armies. Below, signs of the recent action are still plainly visible as trucks and their exhausted drivers hasten back to the beach-head to collect reinforcements. |
Piper Bill, Pegasus Bridge, Normandy, 13.00hrs, 6th June 1944 by David Pentland. Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade, led by Lord Lovat, are piped past the defenders of the Caen canal (Pegasus) bridge by piper Bill Millin. The bridge was originally taken in a coup de main attack by the gliders of 6th Airborne Divisions D Company, 2nd battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, led by Major John Howard earlier that morning. Shortly afterwards the glider troops were reinforced by 7 Parachute Battalion, and together they held the area against German attacks until the main British forces landing at Sword beach could fight through to join them. |
Storming Pegasus Bridge by David Pentland. River Orne, D-Day, 6th June 1944. Glider troops of Major John Howards' D Company Ox and Bucks Light Infantry having achieved complete surprise, secured the bridge in a matter of minutes. Ever since it has been known as Pegasus Bridge in honour of the airborne forces winged horse emblem. |
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