la Seconde Guerre Mondiale

Salut! 

So as promised, this is the blog post that discusses my recent travels.  It is rather awkward to travel from my tiny town because it takes about 3 trains before I reach my final destination.  To complicate my travel further, I also try to avoid Paris because then it is necessary to switch train stations, which is a bit of a headache.  This weekend, I had no choice but to go through Paris, but all in all it wasn’t all that terrible since I had the extra day to enjoy my travels.

I am going to approach this blog post a bit backwards.  Or maybe describing it as “inside out” is more appropriate.  In this post I am just going to talk about the D-Day tour, which happened to fall in the middle of my weekend.  I will write about Caen and Bayeux in another blog post. 

So Saturday morning I woke up early, caught a train from Caen to Bayeux (a 15 minute ride), and arrived in Bayeux by 8:15am.  I had scheduled a morning tour of the D-Day sights, so my tour picked me up at 8:30 and off we went.  In my group there were three other American girls (they work for General Mills and were in Paris auditing the department there), an American student (who is doing research on the environment in Rennes for a semester), a girl from New Zealand (who is also a language assistant placed in Normandy), and two French men (one of whom I’m pretty sure fought in World War II).  Our guide was fantastic, and at each place he would tell us the history for about 15 minutes and then let us explore for another 30 minutes. 

We visited three sights: the Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, and the cemetery.  Of the three, I was most excited about seeing Omaha Beach and the cemetery, but honestly I found the Pointe du Hoc to be the most intriguing.  Situated between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, the point really sticks out into the water!  So I learned that the cliffs were so high and steep that when the rangers threw up their hooks to climb the cliffs, only about half of them (about 20) caught onto the top of the cliffs.  When the rangers arrived, they found telephone poles instead of guns because the Germans had moved their guns about a mile back away from the coast (which a few rangers luckily found and disabled).  The fighting that took place at the Pointe du Hoc was costly, as evidenced by the remaining condition of the fields.  I found this area to be most interesting because the holes in the ground, some easily going as deep as 20 feet, made it feel like the area had been left relatively untouched since the battle.  The holes are now grassy green, but they are the remnants of the bombing.

The sign outside the Pointe du Hoc warning us to keep to the paths.  

Our tour guide mentioned something about unexploded devices.  yikes.

Did you know that the Pointe du Hoc is maintained by a U.S. government agency?

One of the German bunkers that faced the Pointe du Hoc.

A replica gun like the ones that were moved away from the coast before the American arrived.

This is where the Germans had the guns stationed before picking them up and moving them back.

Can you see the holes in the ground?  

It felt oddly like being on a crazy golf course...

See how big, distinctive, and localized the holes are?  

Also, to give perspective, I am facing the water so this is what the soldiers saw upon arrival.

The entrance to a German bunker is below and the monument sits at the very point of the Pointe du Hoc.

A view of the edge of the Pointe du Hoc from inside the bunker.

The barbed wire was what caught the Ranger's materials so that they could climb up the cliffs.

And voici the Pointe du Hoc.  It's just one giant rock.

This is the view down the cliff from where the Rangers arrived.  

Apparently, it took them about 20 minutes to climb up, but I don't know how it didn't take more time!

The plaque next to the pointy memorial.

4 miles behind me and on the other side of that point in the background is Omaha beach.

We then continued to Omaha Beach, which was very interesting to see since the pictures of D-Day that were in my history books came from the fighting on that beach.  When we were there it was high tide, so the beach was not the same condition as when the soldiers arrived on June 6, 1944.  Similarly, the sea was surprisingly calm on Saturday, which apparently was not the case for the soldiers.  I think what surprised me most was the fact that the beach resembled almost any other small French seaside town.  Were it not for the monument and the occasional German bunker, I would have no idea that Omaha beach was at one time a battlefield. 

This sign indicates the sector and division that arrived on that part of the beach.

Omaha Beach with high tide.

See that tiny little black square on the side of the hill?  That's a German bunker.

Because the bunkers face along the beach rather than towards sea, they were both very effective and protected which made it ever more challenging for the Americans.

I am standing on Omaha Beach!
The photographer is on top of the hill, so you can see that the landscape isn't very steep here.

The memorial which is placed on the top of a German bunker.

The plaque on the side of the memorial showing the different divisions.

And finally, the cemetery.  This reminded me greatly of Arlington National Cemetery, but just on a smaller scale.  Something I didn’t know before arriving: for the yearly memorial, the American president always arrives before the French president because the tradition is that the visiting president is invited (in this case the French president is invited).  So even though this is French land, there were American flags and it seems to be treated as an American space.  It was quiet, very well manicured, and had a view of the sea and of Omaha beach. 

Some of the roughly 9,300 graves.

The graves all face west.

View of Omaha Beach from the cemetery.

The most famous grave in the cemetery (Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.)

The Chapel placed in the middle of the cemetery.  woooo American flag!

The ceiling in the chapel...I think it is pretty!

There are both Stars of David and crosses, but the Stars of David are much more rare since many Jews lied about their religion on their dog tags incase they were captured.

"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"

The monument at the entrance of the cemetery.

After the tour, we were then driven back to Bayeux.  It was a full morning!  All in all, I thought that the tour was a fantastic way of seeing some of the important aspects of D-Day.  I highly recommend this visit to anyone and everyone.

Ok so next blog post will be about the other portions of my weekend!

I hope all is well stateside!  Keep in touch!