NEW EXHIBITION ON D-DAY BY THE LEPE HERITAGE GROUP
Our friends at the Lepe Heritage Group have been working hard to put together an amazing exhibition on the role of Lepe and the New Forest in the run up to D-Day. The exhibition will be at the Hampshire Records Office, on Sussex Street, Winchester, from 1st March to 14th April 2022 during normal opening hours. Entry is Free.
The DDLHG website contains a wealth of detailed information that can be viewed via the link https://www.ddaylepe.org.uk
Anyone intending to visit the exhibition is recommended to take a prior exploratory look at the website, including the embedded links. The exhibition will feature a detailed documented and focussed look, supported by models and artefacts, at the contributions made by Lepe and those of the surrounding areas of the New Forest. These collectively became bases for the marshalling and embarkation points of thousands of troops and equipment all destined to play their part in the largest seaborne invasion in history, ‘Operation Neptune’ being the Code name for the initial phase of ‘Operation Overlord’, the invasion of Normandy, on D-Day 6th June 1944. Lepe Beach and Stanswood Bay were the locations for specially constructed hardened beach areas (still visible today) Code name Q and Q2 Hards. Over these Hards troops and highly specialised ‘secret equipments’, including Duplex Drive Tanks, AVRE’s etc. were embarked from their adjacent Marshalling Camp B9, onto LCT’s. Stanswood Bay was the location of the construction and launching of 6# Type B2 concrete caissons (Code named Phoenix), each to be used, along with 200 others, to form the outer breakwaters for the Mulberry Harbours. There will be a particularly exciting presentation of a generally unpublicised and unavailable Combined Operations Study Report of British Force ‘G’. This was produced between the 2nd and 4th October 1944 prior to any published reports being available.
https://www.hants.gov.uk/librariesandarchives/archives/events/d-day-lhg-exhibition
