Bob drove in from Munich on Wednesday to pick up me and my things from Rue Quincampoix. We loaded all of my belongings and plowed out of town – without a GPS or map, mind you – toward Normandy. We checked into a little hotel in Bayeux that night around midnight and got ready for our four-day World War II history tour that would take us across four countries in just as many days. 
The first morning, we drove out of Bayeux and headed toward Colleville-sur-Mer, the Eastern edge of Omaha beach. We found a place to park and just started wandering the beach until we started seeing the Nazi pillboxes on the bluffs and cliffs above us. We stuck close to the water, though, until we saw a decent walking path that led up the beach and to the bluffs. Once we were at the top of the bluffs, we were astonished at how far out from the landing sites these pillboxes were. When we were standing there, the ocean was at high tide and there still would have been a good 200-300 yards for the Allied troops to cover, up-hill, through obstacles, and under constant fire. However, we landed during low tide and there would have been anywhere between 200 and 400 extra yardage to cover. How anyone made it off that beach alive was completely mind-boggling. I had expected to see some of the x-shaped landing craft obstacles still stuck into the beach, so was a little bit disappointed in the absence of those things, but it was quickly overshadowed by the feeling I got when we headed into the cemetery immediately behind us. 
The American Cemetery at Normandy in Colleville-sur-Mer is right off of Omaha beach at the top of the bluffs. It holds over 9,000 graves of Americans that died on D day and shortly thereafter, and is absolutely breathtaking to behold. The site is meticulously groomed, and all 9,000+ graves are in exact line with one another. All are either a Latin cross or Star of David cut from the same pristine white marble. We spent about an hour walking the grounds and traversing the lawns just looking at all the names. There were a significant amount of graves just marked “Here lies in honored glory; a comrade in arms; known only to God.” At the front of the site was a large memorial with some pretty detailed maps of the Allied Expeditionary Force’s operations in Normandy, Northern France, and beyond. After checking pretty much the entire site out, we walked back down to the beach toward our car, stopping at the German pillboxes we’d passed before on our way. These ones were primarily for longer-ranch anti-infantry guns that were aimed down toward Omaha beach from the Eastern endpoint of the sector. 
After the cemetery, we drove along to coast to Vierville-sur-Mer, the Western edge of Omaha beach. We went down to the water where the temporary Mulberry harbor was constructed to accommodate 1.5 million men and equipment that passed through Normandy’s beaches in the 7 weeks prior to the invasion. A big hunk of the pier was still lodged against the sea wall. We explored a few of the German pillboxes along the shore and then had lunch at a little restaurant there in town. From Vierville-sur-Mer, we drove about 20 minutes West to Sainte-Mère Eglise, the town where the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions parachuted into in the early morning hours of D day. 
In the early morning hours of June 6, one of the biggest houses in the town caught fire, so the entire sky was illuminated while the paratroopers were sailing in and a good majority of them were gunned down before they could even hit the ground. The church in Sainte-Mère Eglise still has a paratrooper mannequin hanging by his chute from the steeple to commemorate the American airborne soldier that got caught there and had to play dead for several hours to avoid being shot by the Germans. We went to the Airborne Museum there in the town and then headed back toward Bayeux. 
We stopped at Pointe du Hoc, where we'd attempted to go after Colleville-sur-Mer but the rain made up keep on going to Sainte-Mere Eglise. Pointe du Hoc was where these big guns were placed that could swivel and hit Omaha beach to the East and Utah beach to the West. 225 Army Rangers were given the mission to rappel up the sheer cliff face using Batman-style rope launchers and then to disable the guns. It is also a miraculous piece of WW2 history because after the war we left everything exactly how it was post-invasion. The German pillboxes, gun emplacements, and even the bombing craters left by the Americans are still there. We explored there for awhile and then stopped by the German Cemetery en route back to Bayeux.
Back in Bayeux, we ate dinner at a little steak restaurant and then retired back to our hotel, where I sat down to write my seniors wills for the banquet I was going to attend in Austin first-thing getting back from Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment