We started the day today by heading out to the Normandy landing beaches. We drove quite a distance along the coast passing through tiny stone villages and across flat crop lands. It isn’t a particularly nice day with the drizzle only being interrupted by the rain, although there is the occasional patch of blue sky that tries to show its face before being chased away. Probably much the same as it was all those years ago when those thousands of young soldiers struggled their way up the beaches and cliff faces.
We stopped at Omaha beach which is where the main Assault was and where the American Cemetery now lies. There is a monument and a museum there which we visited. We were a little apprehensive at first thinking that it might just be American ‘Raa Raa’, glorifying their heroism. We were pleasantly surprised. We learnt a lot there, we saw what we expected to see yesterday at the museum. A lot of detail about the build up, the preparation, and the execution of D-Day. Information about the logistics, and co-ordination of what was involved. Information and personal accounts of the individual personnel that were there.
It all started with a few quotes,
“Then it all came down to this brief first day of battle on the coast of Normandy, and, for so many of them, it all ended. For the rest of us, what has been since has not been the same”,
“I started out to cross the beach with 35 men and only 6 got to the top, that’s all …”,
“The men around me lay motionless, only the dead on the waterline rolled with the waves”,
“When I look through the window of my memories, I see nothing but tombstones”.
On D-Day the coast around here was defended by 500,000 beach obstacles, 6.5 million mines, 13,000 fortified coastal strong points, 1.8 million troops in Western Europe, 3,300 artillery pieces, 1,300 tanks, this was one of the most heavily fortified places on earth.
There were 47 divisions (with 6 infantry and 3 airborne division in the first assault) thrown at these defenses. Amongst the lists of inventory of what was shipped over in support of this army, one of the interesting items was 1000 Steinway pianos.
War being what it is, there are almost 10,000 white marble crosses in the American Cemetery here. An extremely sobering sight, when you can see the gold coloured sand, and the grey/blue of the English Channel as a back drop, and imagine it as it was that day. And yet as you look around the world today, war goes on, and more young lives are wasted. People are still tearing out their own entrails.
After finishing here we drove on to Rouen. This was supposed to take no more than a couple of hours. This didn’t account for the car accidents, roadworks, and complete gridlock as we came into town. As a result we were driving around after 8:30 looking for somewhere to sleep. It seems our luck of the past few nights had run out (you can’t know on the door of a B&B at 9pm). We finally found a cheap chain hotel that would accept us. We didn’t think that we would be staying in one of these places again, but at least we had a private bathroom so we didn’t have to put up with other guests bad toilet habits as we have previously.
We stopped at Omaha beach which is where the main Assault was and where the American Cemetery now lies. There is a monument and a museum there which we visited. We were a little apprehensive at first thinking that it might just be American ‘Raa Raa’, glorifying their heroism. We were pleasantly surprised. We learnt a lot there, we saw what we expected to see yesterday at the museum. A lot of detail about the build up, the preparation, and the execution of D-Day. Information about the logistics, and co-ordination of what was involved. Information and personal accounts of the individual personnel that were there.
It all started with a few quotes,
“Then it all came down to this brief first day of battle on the coast of Normandy, and, for so many of them, it all ended. For the rest of us, what has been since has not been the same”,
“I started out to cross the beach with 35 men and only 6 got to the top, that’s all …”,
“The men around me lay motionless, only the dead on the waterline rolled with the waves”,
“When I look through the window of my memories, I see nothing but tombstones”.
On D-Day the coast around here was defended by 500,000 beach obstacles, 6.5 million mines, 13,000 fortified coastal strong points, 1.8 million troops in Western Europe, 3,300 artillery pieces, 1,300 tanks, this was one of the most heavily fortified places on earth.
There were 47 divisions (with 6 infantry and 3 airborne division in the first assault) thrown at these defenses. Amongst the lists of inventory of what was shipped over in support of this army, one of the interesting items was 1000 Steinway pianos.
War being what it is, there are almost 10,000 white marble crosses in the American Cemetery here. An extremely sobering sight, when you can see the gold coloured sand, and the grey/blue of the English Channel as a back drop, and imagine it as it was that day. And yet as you look around the world today, war goes on, and more young lives are wasted. People are still tearing out their own entrails.
After finishing here we drove on to Rouen. This was supposed to take no more than a couple of hours. This didn’t account for the car accidents, roadworks, and complete gridlock as we came into town. As a result we were driving around after 8:30 looking for somewhere to sleep. It seems our luck of the past few nights had run out (you can’t know on the door of a B&B at 9pm). We finally found a cheap chain hotel that would accept us. We didn’t think that we would be staying in one of these places again, but at least we had a private bathroom so we didn’t have to put up with other guests bad toilet habits as we have previously.
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