The meeting point of Juno & Gold Beaches at sunrise on June 6th, Huawei P20 Ordinaire.
The two distant ships are a US warship and the MV Boudicca, just completing her crossing from Portsmouth to Ouistreham with 300 odd veterans aboard.
The quiet solitude of the photos is an illusion, the place was on complete lockdown, hundreds and probably thousands of paramilitary police, special forces and close protection bods with their earpieces and guns. The main roads were all closed, even to walkers. Our dawn amble down the beach was intercepted by a group of heavily armed gentlemen who politely but firmly informed us that we could progress no further towards Courseuilles-sur-Mer, where Trudeau was attending the Canadian commemorations that afternoon, and uniformed silhouettes periodically visible in the dunes made the place probably resemble somewhat the lead up to that other June 6th.
The guest at our neighbouring table in a restaurant that evening told us that he had been more than surprised to find his car in the process of being towed in the morning, and of snipers on the rooftop of his apartment building. I recognised him as a peer of the realm and a former CGS, and he told us that he had been attending the unveiling of the British Memorial in nearby Ver that morning. Strangely, he didn't know about Trudeau.
The RN and the RCN certainly made meat of that bunker. It had housed an 88mm, and I believe was actually put out of action by a Churchill Petard tank, which managed to lob a charge right into the embrasure at close range.