Field-Work

March 1996: 7.00am: King Sector, Gold Beach, Normandy. The sea was a thin grey strip half a mile away as the coachload of boys emptied onto the damp, windswept sand for a breakfast packed away by the school caterers the previous lunchtime. The overnight ferry from which we had recently disembarked seemed less like a good idea now. ‘Why have you brought us here?’ was etched deep into every face. Worksheets were received without enthusiasm.  

Things went downhill after this unpromising beginning. By mid-afternoon, boys were slumped across glass display cases in the museum at Pegasus Bridge. Through miraculous good fortune, our visit coincided with that of a veteran of the Allied attack on the Bridge early on D-Day. Les Chamberlain from Ilkley told the amazing story of how he came to be in the first of the three gliders that crash-landed in the dead of night yards from where we now stood. Here was a primary source that lived and breathed. But it was no good. The sleepless night took its revenge: boys slept where they fell. How could we get things so badly wrong?