Weymouth: D-Day embarkation

When I visit Weymouth, as I seem to be doing now on a regular basis, it’s primarily for the wildlife, the birds, butterflies and dragonflies that are either resident or passing through on their Spring and Autumn migrations, and so almost every day I walk from my guest house on the front along to RSPB Lodmoor and back. Along the way I pass poignant reminders of the importance of this seaside town during the Second World War. 

One of those reminders is this sign, placed as you can see at the bottom of a flight of steps that leads from Greenhill Road down to Brunswick Lane at the edge of the beach. 

The text on the sign reads:

Rangers Way 2
At the start of June 1944, the 2nd Battalion US Rangers descended these steps en masse before lining up on the Promenade. They then marched to the Pavilion to board the boats for the crossing of the Channel to Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France.
"We may never see their like again."

 And, one afternoon, when I was returning to my guest house from a walk around RSPB Radipole via a meandering exploration of the older parts of Weymouth, I found another similar reminder of this town’s strategic importance for the embarkation of soldiers heading to France 82 years ago. 

This harbourside plaque reads:

D-Day Embarkation June 1944

Weymouth was one of the main embarkation points for troops assembled in South Dorset in preparation for the invasion of France during World War II. The thousands of troops who embarked through Weymouth included the US 1st Infantry Division, who landed on Omaha Beach and the 2nd Ranger Battalion who successfully disabled the heavily fortified German artillery battery at Pointe du Hoc. In the days leading up to the 6th June landings this area in front of the old 1908 Pavilion was a bustle of activity with men and supplies being loaded onto landing craft. Over the following year more than half a million American servicemen and 150,000 vehicles would pass through Weymouth and Portland to the beaches of Normandy.

As the Rangers Way sign’s quotation of General Dwight Eisenhower’s famous statement says, ‘We may never see their like again.’