Evendays

Dad, Sons 1 and 2, and I have all read a stack of books about WWII. And with that knowledge, you walk on the sands and see through the mind’s eye the landing craft dumping their human cargo onto the beach. And man, these beaches are deep with hundreds of feet to the embankment. You “see” those enemy soldiers doing all they can to keep you on that beach. To never let you off of it. Ever.

Most of the French language tour books about Normandy consecrate just a few pages to the landings and even though that’s regrettable, it’s understandable. For Normandy is more than a battlefield. It’s a place where people worked and farmed and fished and raised families and holidayed long before the débarquement (D-Day), and it’s right that those same everyday activities continue, even on the beaches and in the fields and along the hedges where so many gave their lives. To turn the entire area into a memorial would defeat the purpose of the invasion.

The cemeteries scattered around are an appropriate enough memorial, as are the everyday activities of the people who live in Normandy, people who still live free…

At least politically free.

The Germans had fortified the entire Normandy coast with heaven weaponry and machine guns. Most of the heavy canon were not knocked out by air, but by sea (the battleship Arkansas and two French ships took out these canons after a day-long battle) or by ground troops (think Pointe du Hoc).

At Colleville, the French have given to America a large plot of land above Omaha Beach. 9,387 US soldiers are buried there. You will also find a wall inscribed with the names of over 1000 soldiers who went missing in action during the Normandy campaign. It is moving to walk the pathways that lead along the beach cliffs past thousands of white crosses, along with the occasional Star of David, which sprout out of the well-kept lawns. Both Wife and I where surprised by the number of French visitors, young and old, who were visiting the graves. The cemetery is beautifully maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Over 20,000 Germans are buried in this simple cemetery near Cambe. Several thousand of the grave markers simply read: Ein Deutscher Soldat. It is small, austere, and a place for deep reflection.

You can click on all the pictures of the last few days for enlargements.

Daughter and Son 2 caught up with us after lunch at the Peace Museum. They’d just been to the temporary exhibit about the Hitler Youth. Son 2 told us how teenagers had massacred inhabitants of a Normandy village after the resistance had derailed a train those same youth were on. It took the German Army Police’s intervention to keep the whole village from being exterminated.

Pegasus bridge is now the name of the Caen Canal crossing where Major John Howard and his men landed their gliders just after midnight on June 6. (Stephan Ambrose wrote an entire book on this one operation.) The British successfully took the bridge and held “on till relieved”. (For those of you who’ve watched The Longest Day, that command is repeated in a haunting voice 4 times during the film… It becomes unintentionally comic!)

Sword beach is just a short drive away (as is Ouistrehem, where the French led a bloody attack on the German’s communication center). Dad carefully collected sand from that beach (as he did from all the beaches). Then we headed down to Juno and Gold, where the children flew a kite in gale force winds while us older folks sipped coffee in a nearby hotel lobby.

We just put the parents on the plane in Zurich this morning. The vacation turned into a blog (and email) holiday too, which wasn’t intended. Thanks for dropping by to the same old post.

We spent most of our time in Switzerland except for the 5 day trip to Normandy. The region of Basse Normandie (yes, there is an Haute Normandie too) was a well-known tourist destination long before June 6, 1944… Just think Mont Saint-Michel and the birthplace of Guillaume the Conqueror. Though the water is cold, the wide beaches off the Côte de Nacre served rich summer vacationers, (though less popular than those of the French Riviera).

Check out the link for a map of the area if you need a reminder of locations and distances. Zoom in and out to find the 5 landing beaches (Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword) along with the infamous cliffs at Pointe du Hoc (west of Omaha beach).

Most battlefield tours of the area begin at the Peace Museum (or Peace Memorial) in Caen. It’s a wonderful museum that covers not only WWII, but the build-up to war from 1918 on. It’s fascinating and “global”, keeping the interest of history buff and novice alike.