Bénouville, Calvados

Bénouville
Château de Bénouville
Bénouville
Location within Lower Normandy region  Bénouville
Administration
Country	France
Region	Lower Normandy
Department	Calvados
Arrondissement	Caen
Canton	Ouistreham
Intercommunality	Caen la Mer
Mayor	Alain Lepareur (2008–2014)
Statistics
Elevation	1–50 m (3.3–160 ft) (avg. 30 m or 98 ft)
Land area1	5.28 km2 (2.04 sq mi)
Population2	1,946  (2008)
- Density	369 /km2 (960 /sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	14060/ 14970
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Bénouville is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.

It is located on the Canal de Caen à la Mer close to Caen and Ouistreham.

Sights

• Château de Bénouville completed in 1777 by Claude Nicolas Ledoux
• Pegasus Bridge

D-Day and Pegasus Bridge

Further information: Operation Deadstick

Pegasus Bridge in 1944

Bénouville was the scene of the first - and possibly most vital - battle of the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day, June 6, 1944. From 12.15 am (British Double Summertime = 23:15 German/Middle-European time), a reinforced company of glider-borne troops from the 2nd Batt. Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, led by Major Reginald John Howard, landed around the bridge over the Caen Canal at Bénouville in three Horsa gliders and captured it from the Germans in a swift and dramatic attack. Control of this bridge was vital to the success of the whole Operation Overlord invasion, because it would be the route of any German counter-attack against the seaborne forces which were due to start landing a few hours later on Sword Beach.

At the same time, another Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire glider-borne force of sixty men (one glider was wrongly released) captured the neighbouring bridge over the River Orne, about a quarter of a mile away near Ranville - which was vital for the same reason. The Caen Canal bridge was later renamed Pegasus Bridge by Royal Engineers, in honour of the winged horse symbol of the Airborne Forces, while the River Orne bridge was renamed Horsa Bridge, after the gliders which carried the men to war. Today, Pegasus Bridge and the nearby Gondrée Café are known worldwide and are the scene of many pilgrimages and commemoration ceremonies, particularly around June 6. A few hundred yards from Pegasus Bridge, there is the excellent Musée Mémorial Pégasus telling the story of the Airborne coup de main-operation. For a classic, but even in the second print in details faulty account of the battle for the bridges, read Pegasus Bridge, by Stephen Ambrose. On D Day M and Mme Gondrée who lived in the café were woken up by the landing of the gliders. M Gondrée looked out of a window of the café and saw black masked troops running over the bridge which he later learned were British, and in celebration dug up some 99 bottles of champagne which he had hidden in the garden and celebrated his liberation with some of the men from the gliders. The Gondrées had three daughters and one of them, Arlette, bought the café some years ago and now maintains it as a memorial to the men who landed on June 6, 1944. (her picture is in the Holt's Normandy Battlefield Guide Book published by Pen and Sword). It is also a working café. For many years after the war Major John Howard could be found in the café over the June 6 anniversary and even today many veterans and current members of the Airborne Forces visit Arlette, though not D Company-members who rather preferred the new, opposite establishment Les Trois Planeurs after a row with Arlette.

Population

Historical population of Bénouville, Calvados

Year	1962	1968	1975	1982	1990	1999	2008
Population	754	739	827	828	1258	1741	1946

Twin towns

Bénouville is twinned with:

• Lynton and Lynmouth, United Kingdom

See also

• Communes of the Calvados department

References

• INSEE