Sept 26: Normandy Beaches

Anytime you mention Normandy the beaches come up. And it is understood that swimming is not part of the equation. I visited Utah beach 2 years ago, and Maryvonne wanted to see some of this history too. There is a set of locations marked by signs on a driving tour that include the key sites. We stopped at a few of those I thought to be most important.

The drive to the coast goes through the hedgerow country. I will try not to add a history lesson here, but seeing this battle ground makes it easy to visualise the difficulty of fighting through this area.

The Point du Hoc memorial is preserved as it was- bomb craters, destroyedbbunkers, and barbed wire. The courage of the Rangers who fought here is evident. 255 landed, ran the beach under fire for 3 miles to arrive at their designated objective. They then scaled sheer cliffs under fire, found the guns they were sent to destroy, did so and then fought off repeated counter assaults for two days before relief. There were 70 left able bodied.

The next place we went was the American cemetery. It is a beautiful memorial, with monuments that are unique in that they honor the dead while showing the cause for which they died. There is a sort of museum there that does a very good job of instructing about D-Day. It is worth a few hours to make this stop, and is probably the only one of the several museums one needs to see at Normandy.

One thing we were surprised at was the number of visitors here. It is good to see that this important area is remembered, by not only the American tourists, almost all of whom are baby boomers, but also by the French people and government. It is important to remember what the lives of these men meant. If you come here, it is likely you will leave with a better appreciation of sacrifice, courage, solidarity and strangely, joy.

I am sending only two pictures at this time. I may add a slide show to the blog when I get back.