I just spent a week in Normandy and visited some new museums. Well, new for me anyway. Dead Man’s Corner in Sainte Côme du Mont (near Carentan) is really new, and the Musée Aout 1944 at Falaise is actually quite old, but new to me. I can recommend the first one. It hosts a nice part of Michel De Trez’s personal collection. This is the place to go if you want to see a real PPN-1 Eureka beacon set and a BUPS beacon (click on the picture below to go to the museum web site).
The museum also hosts the paratrooper.fr shop, which has a large assortment of original and repro paratrooper items.
The museum at Falaise was quite a let-down, to be honest. If you are into vehicles, it may be OK, but uniform and equipment-wise there’s nothing of interest at all. To me it was not worth the 5 euros entrance and the long detour from the landing sites. I was in-and-out in 20 minutes. The building is derelict and ill-lit. See web site for more info. On the upside though, Falaise also boasts the castle where William the Conqueror was born, or rather, the castle that was built on top of the remains of the original one. This castle has been beautifully restored and is well worth the visit, so if you can combine this with the museum, it may be worth the detour.
Fort Benning, GA. These are early war pictures, as can be seen by the uniforms and equipment. Note the Riddell football helmets, the T-4 parachute, the jump boots with buckles and shiny eyelets, the white name tapes on the coveralls and even some very early M-1941 jump suits and the ultra rare camouflaged jumpsuit. In short, these pictures are full of impossible to find gear. We can always dream, can’t we?
