Warbird Information Exchange

I agree, these look like Shermans moving 'non tactically' North in convoy on the RHS of the road.

As a TA soldier of the 1950/60's, ah yes, Michael Wittman, who just about wiped out most of my former regiment, 3/4 CLY, at Villers Bocage.

A reunion trip to Normandy is planned for next year.

PeterA

there are !

go there : http://www.geoportail.fr

And type the name of the place in the search engine, you have the whole french territory in high def. on this site.
If you have problems to get the image, I'll do it for you this evening

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try this...

does it work ?

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Oui, merci beaucoup mon ami ! Tres bon.

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

Surprisingly the RAF Photo/R and Tac/R units did a lot of sorties pre-D-Day taking photographs suitable to update maps before the Invasion took place. The additional photographic coverage meant maps were able to be produced that were very up to date and that could also include detail that was not considered necessary in WW1 eg. weight load capacity for bridges suitable to get armour over. Quite often the reconnaissance photographs were issued to units to supplement the maps and provide a different perspective to the countryside they were operating in.

Regards,

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Colin Ford
Canberra
Australia
No.268 Squadron Royal Air Force 1940-46
Historian by Appointment

Heres another way in English, Flashearth.com, both google & microsoft maps. The microsoft one being hi-res in this case
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=48.902608&lon=-0.386042&z=17.4&r=285&src=msa

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Martin
Wide open & turning left.

As mentioned before the picture actaually rotated. The road and the Shermans on them are headed EAST. Straight for Berlin.



Also as mentioned before this picturewas marked as having been taken on 20 August 1944.

By then the Lines of battle had move out that region and were more east and south. The area must have been relatively secures as by 9 August 1944, General Eisenhower had moved his command headquarters from England to Normandy, France.

And by 15 August 1944, Operation "Dragoon": Allied forces, the 7th American Army (3 American and 7 French divisions) invade southern France, east of Toulon.
The Allied landing in the South of France started when troops from General Patch's US 7th Army and French Commandos (II French Corps) came ashore between Cannes and Toulon. Naval bombardment supports the beachheads and carrier aircraft outnumber the Luftwaffe 25:1. The action is followed by Winston Churchill from distance and he saw little German opposition to the attack; General Weise has only 7 infantry divisions and 11th Panzer Division to protect the entire south and south-east of France.

So I would guess that the tanks in the picture are relief coming from behind the lines to reinforce front line units and are not under immeadiate threat, hence the standard mode of travel.

Interestingly enoungh on 20 August 1944, the day this picture was taken, Russia invaded German occupied Romania.

http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/1944.htm


Shay
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Semper Fortis