The house at the road junction was fought over and at one point a tank was hit and put out of action. The commander was killed and his body hung out of the hatch for 3 days before it could be taken down and buried - hence the name.
Originally the house was set up as a private museum and specialist military shop selling high quality (and high priced) original clothing and military ware. It is still there and I can see the couple of rooms are quite good but very limited in scope.
Now, here's the interesting bit - look behind the house, to the right...
...and you will see this...a brand new hanger with high quality exhibitions, a good gift shop and a Dakota aeroplane (I'll come back to that). It's only a month old and there's not even a muddy mark on the gleaming white car park and concrete paths.
Anyway, I was one of the first to arrive (always a good thing, before the people carriers and coaches arrive). I was advised it would take about 30 minutes to see the first bit of the exhibition, which it did. The young lady then said we were now ready for our briefing so the five of us, another gent and a family of three, went around a corridor into a mock-up of an air-force briefing room.
We sat down on the benches and waited. We could see a table and chair in the room, and a door. The lights went down and, as they came slowly back up again, the door opened and a flight lieutenant came in. He then went about briefing us on this momentous flight we were about to make; the culmination of all our training, to parachute into occupied France on D-Day. Gripping stuff.
After the briefing, we were taken into the next room, which looked like the hardstanding of an airfield and on it stood the Dakota. We were told to get in and strap ourselves in to our seats, which we did. The girl followed us to make sure we were ready and she then left, closing the door behind us. We waited.
In a few seconds we could hear the huge engines start and the plane vibrated under the strain. It started to move down the runway and we could see out of the windows, the airfield whizzed past. As it gathered speed it took off and it rocked and juddered as it gained in height. We could see other Dakotas alongside us doing the same in rough formation. We flew over the channel and as we reached the French coast we were targeted by anti-aircraft flak. We were battered about and then we heard a loud bang and could see one of our engines on fire. The plane took a nose dive and smoke came out of the cockpit. The tannoy told us to brace ourselves. We hit the ground in a controlled but heavy landing. As we came to a halt the girl came back in and told us to get out. It all lasted about 4-5 minutes I suppose but was a very good impression of the real thing (I guess) and I found it quite emotional really.
While this was a bit at the theme park end of things, it was nevertheless a good experience and unique as far as I could tell. So, there is money in this military tourist experience. As I said, I just wonder how far it will go.
It was too dark too take any pictures inside. In fact, to be honest, it was so engaging, I forgot to take any but I did find this rather nice Landy parked outside...
Anyway, this museum is worth going to, especially before the carpark gets too may oil drips on it.
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