We drove from Totnis through Dartmouth down to Stoke Fleming, checked into a very beautiful hotel room, and then started driving south down the coast to the small towns and beaches where the American army and navy trained for D Day. Apparently Monty Montgomery had the idea that the beaches at Slapton Sands were most like Normandy. As we drove on narrow cliff roads I tried to imagine our tanks and trucks converging here. And the generals plotting out the invasion. A lady told me Montgomery and Eisenhower met here in Stoke Fleming. We drove south from Stoke Fleming and walked to the beach from a car park. As we stood on the sand and looked up at the cliffs and rough terrain it does look like Normandy. There are memorials along the 5 to 6 mile stretch both to the village people who were evacuated with 2 weeks notice and to the Americans who died here. Landing craft loaded with men and Sherman tanks that had been fitted with floation devices left Plymouth and headed around the shore past Salcombe and made the run toward the beaches training for Normandy. German U boats and what are called torpedo boats lurking off the English coast hit 3 of our boats and bodies washed up on shore as tanks sank in about 85 feet of water. One tank was found and raised in the 1980s and it stands at Torbay along with plaques that tell the story from Montgomery’s idea to train the Americans there to Eisenhower’s decision to use live ammunition during the training exercises. Torbay also built a little friendship garden just like one in France. After lunch taken at a picnic table near the beach where I ate profiteroles (cream puffs) filled with cream, chocolate, and orange, (As I ate I thought of Debbie who reads the dessert side of the menu first. Well Debbie I certainly could use you here. Today I ate toast with lemon curd, nutella, and cream. Good grief. I need a beach walk.) anyway after lunch, we left Torbay and began the tortuous drive down the coast to south of Salcombe to an English National Trust gardens and house called Overbeck’s poised on the cliffs. We looked at flowers, palm trees and wonderful birds and inside the house an amazing collection of a scientist and inventor Otto Overbeck like the polyphone music box (we had a smaller Regina music box my father had that I played tin records on when I was about 5 years old. You can hear the tunes on U Tube. When I hear the music in old movies, I can see the box). Upstairs we found many unusual antiques and stuffed animals (ugh). We took a similar tortuous road back to Stoke Fleming, walked along a scary tiny overgrown coastal path to a wonderful "proper" pub, drank Guinness and a shandy, ate a small dinner and tumbled into bed. God bless you.
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