Mulberry Whale, St Denis de Méré, Normandie, FR - World War II Sites on Waymarking.com

This small unassuming bridge, Le Pont des Bordeaux, has an interesting tale to tell, of Resistance operations, and the incredible engineering feat that was the Mulberry harbours.

On the evening of 29 Jun 1944 a small group of Resistance fighters led by Julién Begyn destroyed the bridge over the Noireau on the road Les Bordeaux near St Denis de Méré. (For more info see the pictures attached of the display board by the bridge.)

In 1945 the bridge was replaced by a metal span from the floating "Mulberry B" harbour at Arromanches, which was by then no longer in use.

The span was a "Whale", a component of the floating roadway that connected the portable Mulberry harbour to the land for disembarkation of cargo in the wake of the D day landings.[1]

At present only eight "Whales" are known to exist in Normandy. One was, until recently, over the Vire between Pont-Farcy and Fourneaux (see [3] for details) and six exist in museum collections[3]. This is the only one in Normandy still in service as a road bridge. Elsewhere, other examples exist over the Meuse River in Vacherauville (Meuse), as a bridge over the Moselle River on road D56 between Cattenom and Kœnigsmacker (Moselle) and in Vierville-sur-Mer (Calvados) alongside road D517.[1]

If you take the "velorail" (excursions along the track on self powered rail trucks) from Pont Erambourg you get an excellent view of this bridge from the higher railway bridge [5]

It was restored in 2002 by the Conseil Général du Calvados.

1. Wikipedia Mulberry Harbour
2. Christopher Long Saving a Whale
3. Christopher Long Saving A British Bailey Bridge (the bridge over the Vire Pont-Farcy and Fourneaux)
4. Normandy then and Now A Rare Piece Of D-Day History In This Sleepy Normandy Valley
5. Vélorails des Collines Normandes