D-Day and the Battle of Normandy

To keep in synch with my World War II History, and since I had seen much of the Paris stuff before, I decided to take a one-day excursion from Paris to the Normandy Region to visit the Beaches of the Normandy battle. I booked the tour through the same place I did my bike-tour last time, Fat Tire Bike Tours.

So, on Friday, June 2, I hopped on a train that dropped me off in Bayeux, France near the northern coast. My tour guide, Aerlie (Sp?) picked myself and a few others up from the small train station and put us in a small mini-van to start the tour. There were only 6 of us on the tour, so it was like we had our own personal tour-guide - which was Awesome. Aerlie was super. She was born and raised in Bayeux and her family had been in the area for generations. Needless to say, she grew up listening to stories from her grandparents and parents about the invasion of the allies in France as well as grew up playing in the bunkers still standing on the beaches. It is always nice to have a tour guide with first hand knowledge of the area as well as a personal connection to the "tour." She had had family killed during the invasion, but as odd as it may sound, she said that her family was not mad about it. Sure they were sad, but her family knew that the invasion was necessary in order to remove the Germans from France. I have never seen so many American Flags flying in one country - other than US!

I really loved learning the history of the invasion - From the the reasons as to why the invasion took place on June 6th (which was due to the weather, the tide and the moon), to what countries approached what beaches, to the lives that were lost - both civillian and military, to Operation OVERLOAD, to Operation Neptune and the passage from one side of the Channel to the other, to the artifical floating roads used to bring supplies from ship to shore.

La Point Du Hoc and it's dominant position is created on the coast by it's large vertical cliffs. Due to the large bunkers on the tops of these cliffs, they had to be taken in order to free the beaches from danger. Unknown to the American soldiers whose mission it was to take over the cliffs, the Germans had moved their artillery and the area had been the target of heavy bombing attacks in the days before. Their arrival upon the tops of the cliffs from their climb from the bottom was met by heavy gun-fire and numerous casualties.

My favorite part about being here was that while we were standing near the edge of the cliff (as close as we could get to it), a fighter jet flew by with it's turbo engines on. It was like the tour guide pushed a button and it came on command. It was such an awesome feeling to feel the energy from the plane rock you like that. I suppose, though, that is a sense of what it felt like for soldiers who were actually under fire from planes like that.

You can see the bunkers that were once on these cliffs along with the valley like terrain created by the bombs.














Here you can get a sense for how high these cliffs were and how far the soldiers had to climb.














OMAHA Beach
Also known as "OMAHA the Bloody". On June 6th, 1944, American forces landed on the beach and were met by fire from automatic weapons from the Germans. It is such a beautiful area of country that it is hard to beleive that it was one of the bloodiest during the war.

In this picture, you can kind of see how far the beach goes out and why the wait for they waited for the low tide.















After a few stops at some other sights of interest (a museum and Gold Beach), we went to the American Cemetery at Colleville S'Laurent. Technically American soil, almost 10,000 Americans are buried there. This is only about 1/3 of the number of soldiers who were killed in the area. The cemetery is in the shape of a Latin cross with a giant memorial chuch/center in the middle. Every grave faces West - as they face towards their "HOME". Sibilings are buried near each other and it just so happens that many of the soldiers who were killed on June 6th during the invasion on OMAHA are buried closest to the sea. It's an absolutely beautiful cemetery, with the ocean breeze to calm every emotion that you might have. To top off the visit, as we were walking through the graves, a trumpet started to play "Taps". There are two songs in the world that cause me to get a lump in my throat. Taps and the Star Spangled Banner.

The still standing bunkers, the memories that live on in the children of generations past, and the beaches that will forever tell the story of the soldiers who died are some of the most memorable places that I have visited. Maybe it was the tour guide, maybe it was the sunshine, or maybe it was the sounds of the fighter plane and the trumpet that led me to the truth behind the war zone. It was a nice feeling to be here around the anniversary date of the invasion, and as funny as it may sound, it made me proud to be an American.