Pegasus Bridge - Today

Today

Pegasus Bridge now resides in the grounds of the Pegasus Museum. The museum was inaugurated by HRH The Prince of Wales on 4 June 2000, Brigadier James Hill, Françoise Gondrée foundress with General Sir Richard Gale as Président and lies at the Eastern end of the current bridge. The original bridge was replaced in 1994 by the wider, stronger structure, built by Spie Batignolles,. It had been extended by 5 metres in the early 1960s to accommodate the widening of the canal and remained in use until 1993. After its replacement, Pegasus Bridge was left on waste ground. The bridge was sold to the museum for the symbolic price of one Franc.

Many of the soldiers killed in the actions of June 1944 are buried in the war cemetery at Ranville. Lt. Brotheridge's grave, which is located in the churchyard next to the cemetery, has a commemorative plaque that was installed by the family Gondrée, whose house near Pegasus Bridge was the first to be liberated during D-Day. It contains a café and a small museum shop that sells Pegasus Bridge related material. Arlette Gondrée, who now runs Café Gondrée, was a small child living in the home when it was liberated.

Read more about this topic:  Pegasus Bridge

Famous quotes containing the word today:

    I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it’s tobacco, then let it be tobacco.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    Xenophobia looks like becoming the mass ideology of the 20th-century fin-de-siècle. What holds humanity together today is the denial of what the human race has in common.
    Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)

    Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected to hide!
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)