Airborne Museum — Attraction in Cherbourg

Excellent. We spent just under four hours wandering the exhibition halls.

It was the middle of November so the first two exhibition halls including the glider and C-47 halls were both incredibly cold. The newer and more recently added Op Neptune hall was alot warmer, though moaning about the weather seems so insignificant when reading the stories of heroism and true bravery of the service men and women who fought so bravely in June 1944.

It's a great museum, like so many others dotted around the Normandy coastline, it tells so many stories. Young men fighting along side their friends, getting injured and being killed to gain yards, a bridge, a road or a village square.

The models and displays in the Op Neptune hall look so real and life-like, with the stares of the soldiers concentrated on you as you wander by. You could spend twice as long as we did, there is so much to see, to read and to watch, numerous film clips and lots of equipment. It begins to bring home the enormity of what they had to contend with and what they achieved.

It was also really pleasing to see young school children visiting. It so important that museums like this are maintained for future generations to learn about the noble men and women who achieved so much for us.

Well worth a visit as is of course Sainte-Mère-Église.

Returned in September 2022. The C47 exhibition hall is now open again & is even better than before. Several other small improvements around the museum & exhibition halls, which I won't describe, I'll leave you to discover them for yourselves. I've added 20 plus photos.

I really enjoyed my visit & would thoroughly recommend visiting the Airborne Museum, a fitting memorial to those who gave their lives for our today. Throughly recommended & what a great museum that should be visited by young & old, especially school children from...

This museum deals in depth with the air landing in Normandy, which took place on the night of June 5th to 6th, 1944, before the infantry landed on the beaches. It's about parachutists, but also about the many gliders (type: Wacu and Horsa) that were towed over the canal from England with C47 (raisin bombers) and were supposed to land here unobtrusively. The spartan 200 km / h fast lightweight gliders made only of plywood and linen, with rudimentary flight and steering properties, could either carry soldiers, but also a Willys Jeep or a small gun, depending on the model. Unfortunately, the landing on the explored areas often did not succeed or the areas had been made unusable with Rommel asparagus (posts), so that there were an unbelievable number of crash landings with great losses. The dramatic fate of the parachutists, who arrived practically as living targets and some of them were killed immediately or "inconveniently" hung on the church tower, is also discussed here. Overall, it can be said that the whole thing was partly suicide missions and the decision was only made about burning human lives. In addition to vehicles and tanks, the museum has such a glider. In addition to many small artifacts in showcases, many pieces are also set up in so-called displays. As a visitor you get a tablet with which you can interactively call up a lot of in-depth information audiovisually at various points in the museum (no audio guide). In addition, there is sometimes a background noise with calls, commands, shots and engine noises. What may sound gimmicky at first, but creates really strong impressions on the...

Tablets were a plus to bring you into the interactive experience, and it assisted in keeping younger children focused on something vs running around and yelling like they were doing in so many other museums. This also seemed to be a bit of a disadvantage because they would rush from one spot to the next often rudely cutting others off waiting patiently, not a museum flaw a parental flaw IMO. Understanding that a museums purpose is to get people in the door and educate, we enjoyed the information and items we were able to see and experience. The small path around the glider in the first building and paths through the next building would greatly benefit from spacing people out a bit at the entrance. I'm not meaning solely because of the covid situation and all the distancing suggestions/requirements, that aside it was a constant battle to get to the next case to see contents only to be pushed up on from behind by the next people. In addition to their being minimal space to stand to follow along with your tablet, we found ourselves searching for a bare spot to stand which was difficult with all the people gathering to do the same thing. Perhaps staff members walking through on occasion to gage the capacity as others are allowed in could help? Find it hard to stay focused on what I wanted to experience and learn here when...