The Great Escaper: From Portsmouth to Normandy

D-Day was one of the great turning points in the Second World War. The invasion of the French coastline in Normandy saw more than 156,000 Allied soldiers put ashore successfully in a single day and marked the beginning of the end of the war in the West. Normandy was a battle of seventy-seven days and while many died, most men came home, and in the years that followed WW2, they returned to Normandy as veterans. In 'The Great Escaper', Sir Michael Caine stars as Bernard Jordan, the D-Day veteran who made global headlines when he ‘escaped’ his care home to attend the 70th anniversary commemorations in Normandy, aged 89. The film explores what that return to the 1944 battlefield meant to him as an individual, but also the mental and physical impact shouldered by a whole generation who fought and survived the Second World War. Travel with us to understand Bernard Jordan's story, uncover the stories of other veterans who were there and visit some of the key battlefields of eighty years ago.

You will stay for one night at the Ibis Portsmouth Centre, and three nights at the Ibis Falaise, or similar.