Bude at War weekend

" The day the Americans came "   that was the name of the event that happened in Bude this weekend.  
In 1943   Bude where I now live changed from a small holiday town  to hosting US and British troops training for the D day landing as well as evacuees from London  
Most of the accommodation in  the town was used  as billets for the soldiers
The American Rangers came to Bude to practice climbing the cliffs   ready for the D day landings in  Normandy  France, this photo is part of an re-enactment of  the training the troops did to prepare  for D day

This next photo shows soldiers climbing up from Maer beach . cant see  them in the photo but there are 2  concrete pillars called tank traps which were there to stop enemy tanks landing on the beach some folk still call this tank trap beach

This Memorial for the rangers is on Summerleaze downs  many of the soldiers lost there lives in the D day landing in France the stone is in memory  of those who died,  A service was held here on Sunday morning and a wreath laid  in remembrance of all who  fought for  the freedom we have today  

 There was a lot going on over the weekend  A re-enactment group  first wave 44   gave a display of  the training they would have done    Having to borrow some photos here as couldn't get close enough to get any of my own

The Americans Shipped many military vehicles during the war   many of which were displayed  here in the open air museum

 What else was on We went  to a talk on the Enigma machine use for code breaking such a lot of information that I cant remember much of what was said, I wouldn't have been any good at trying to work out the  new code everyday,  they said that they wanted to recruit people secretly so they put a crossword in a newspaper they figured anyone who could solve the crossword would be a good codebreaker cant remember which paper it was  I borrowed these Photos from a friend  of the enigma machine

There was also a chance to try out morse code which was used to transmit messages as it was a good way to communicate it wasn't a secret code  but a  way of  communication  in the days before modern methods  morse code is made up of dots and dashes   ... --- ...  would be SOS
I did Learn  Morse code  when I was in the girl guides but cant remember much of it now.

Communication radios used for sending messages between  units and head quarters

Continued on next post