A lovely breakfast served by Anthony, the son of the proprietor, and we’re off to make the rounds of D-Day. We’ve been to the splendid World War II Museum in New Orleans, I’m a student of history, and we’ve all seen Saving Private Ryan. So there’s definitely context. We hadn’t planned to do it all (and didn’t), but after something of a lecture from Anthony that we should visit both the American and German cemeteries – everyone should forgive, and (according to him) his generation didn’t instigate the fight, it was their grandparents, etc – we did. In fact we started with the German cemetary – moving and majestic (and therre are German cemeteries in over 100 countries in the world):
Then to Le Hoc – the 100+foot high promontory climbed by the Rangers (though half were lost in the attempt) using rope ladders, hooks and protection from the air.
As we stood on this point, it marked the break between Utah and Omaha beach, the latter being the site of the most difficult landing and greatest losses of life. The beaches were long, sweeping and curved.
Watching folks stroll along it was a strange juxtaposition with what happend on June 6th – 9th, while Allied forces clawed their way to a protected hold on the area that allowed temporary docks to receive massively more troops (500,000 in total before all was through), jeeps, tanks and weaponry. Bunkers where men hid and munitions stored:
The fertile grassland was dotted with indentations in the land, obviously where bombs had landed.
We then headed to another museum (they are so many of them, for different divisions, events and operations), that had so much materiel from uniforms, to hats, guns, badges, newspapers of the era, etc., etc.,
and then the American cemetary:
There was a wreath with thanks from a particular small town in Normandy that had been recently placed at the foot of a beautiful statue within the monument at one end of the graveyard. A woman in a short movie we watched, whose husband had fought that day, remarked how the French remain to this day so grateful for their liberation and in so m any ways, appreciate moer than most Americans, the sacrifices that were made by Allied soldiers to free them.
We stopped for a lunch break in the little town that brings in all the fresh scallops and fish, Port-en-Bessin-Huppain. The place we wanted to enjoy (and pretty much every other place) was closed for serving lunch, so we reserved a place for dinner and enjoyed another picnic from the back of the car. Local french cheese, fresh baguette and salami flavored with cepes – who could ask for more?
We were off again, continuing our journey east (all of this, from beginning to end, was about a one hour drive) to the remains of german artillery and bunkers that were preserved pretty well. We walk along to check them out, and found out they had a 12-mile range,
and walking out straight ahead, to the edge of the cliff, we came to the “range-finding stations” that used sighting information to help the guns be properly aimed. Then we drove the car down a narrow and steep road to the beach and back, and then headed back to Hotel Tardif for an afternoon rest. Dinner back at the seafood place Le Vaubon, where the good cheer of the maitresse was better than the food itself. Ah, Paris, you have spoilt us but good. But as I said that night, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!