I purposely saved the American beaches for my last day as I wanted to have a perspective of the overall invasion, the participation of the other Allied troops and of course, the Nazi army as the faced the magnitude of the D-Day invasion.
I began the day at Omaha Beach and the Overlord Museum. Of the many museums that I visited along the beaches, this one told the story best I thought. When one considers the massive planning, the secret surveillance missions prior to the landings, the pre invasion operations to clear the mining of the beaches, and the many other aspects leading up to the actual day, it was an unbelievably enormous undertaking. Then if you realize all of the things that went wrong on D-Day, you have to realize the amazing resilience of the troops in successfully carrying out this overall mission.
One of the things that I have always been intrigued with is the hedgerows and the fact that the planners didn't understand the significance of them to the inland operations. In looking at the aerial photos in the museums, it is understandable though as these images don't really depict them as they are at ground level. As you drive along the narrow roads it is easy to see the problems. Hedgerows are filled with such growth that it was impossible to penetrate them on foot and because they are grown on top of small berms, when the tanks drove over and through them, the unarmored belly of the tanks were exposed to the German guns. It provided great cover for German troops to attack the allies as the progressed inland. It wasn't until some ingenious mechanics fabricated "plows" for the tanks made from repurposed beach barriers (the familiar steel X's) that would allow the thanks to get directly through the berms and hedgerows that our troops started to make real progress in getting through through the hedgerows.
The most important stop of the day was the American Cemetery. This cemetery contains the graves of 9389 of our military dead, most of whom died on D-Day or in the following days of the invasion. Many of these soldiers were buried here at the request of their families. At the end of the cemetery is the Wall of The Missing containing the names of 1557 missing soldiers. Over the years, some of those missing were found and identified. Each of this are marked with a flower. The beach here is as peaceful as can be and really doesn't tell the story of what happened here 80 years ago.
I have to admit that I was not prepared for the emotions that I felt at these beaches but particularly at the cemetery. To think that each and every man and woman that gave the ultimate sacrifice here did so not so much for country but to save the world from the sickness of a demented monster.
My next stop was at Pointe du Hoc between Omaha and Utah beaches. This emplacement, at the top of perhaps the highest cliffs was an essential target as the guns here were trained on both Omaha and Utah beaches. As I walked the path to the site of the gun batteries, I was struck by the fact that the area is marked by dozens if not hundreds of bomb craters, and the ruins of some of the casements that were bombed, a testament to the barrage that was rained on this site by the big guns of the ships. It was made up of an observation bunker and 6 main gun casements well as 4 machine gun placements. After a raging battle, US troops were able to take the site only to find that the big guns were not there. The Germans had moved them to a farm about a 1/2 mile away where they could still be effective. The soldiers found and disabled those guns.
My last stop was at St. Mere Eglise. This town was one of the first to be liberated by the American invaders. It came at a high cost though as many of the Airborne troops were mistakenly dropped on the town which was heavily occupied by Germans. One famous story revolves around two whose parachutes became entangled in the local church steeple. To this day, the people of the town have a parachute hung from the church.
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| Parachute on Church steeple today |
I can't begin to articulate what it meant to me to visit these beaches. To be here, stand on this ground and realize the courage and determination of those that fought here is truly a blessing.
To wrap this up I am just going to do a photo and video dump. There was so much to see and most of these are self explanatory.
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