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| Manoir à Le Manoir (The Manor at The Manor) Pimprenel, CC BY-SA 3.0 |
The next day, the 9th., we hadn't much to do and in the afternoon a gang of us went down through the village called Le Manoir [1], to the Mobile Bath unit that was down there near the stream. [2] There were quite a few Army fellows waiting to have a shower so we decided to dive into the stream. It was very cold so we only stopped in the water for a few minutes. It was deep anyway. Then at the Army place we were able to get our dirty towel, shirt and socks changed for clean. That evening nearly everyone went out for a walk around armed with their rifle or Sten as per our orders. I went down to the village with a couple of the boys and had my first taste of Cognac. Not bad! [3] I did not see many civilians, although the houses here were intact. All houses and walls were built in the same grey stone.
We had a few exciting nights here as Jerry came over to bomb the shipping on the coast. The opposition put up made a wonderful sight. At times the whole sky seemed filled with slow moving strings of red balls. The ground shook with the continuous explosions. One day here, at about mid-day I saw two planes crash. A Mustang, that must have been in trouble, was shot down by a Lightening. [4] Not long after, a Liberator [5] crashed after performing a series of acrobatics that even a fighter would be proud of. The crew were already floating down on their parachutes.
- The village of Le Manoir is a small village located in the department of Calvados of the French region Basse-Normandie.
- Probably the river Seulles.
- Was it? This is the Calvados region!
- An American "own goal", it would seem.
- The B-24 Liberator Bomber
