Normandy

On another weekend trip organized by GW, I was able to visit the province of Normandy, in the north of France. Yes, the same Normandy where soldiers stormed the beaches in order to retake occupied France on June 6, 1944: D-Day during World War II.

After a long bus ride, we first visited the D-Day museum - or as the French call it 'Jour-J.' The exhibit was very interesting. And I'm not one for military history, so that's saying something. I actually learned a lot more about the history of the war and of course the famous battle.

From there we drove to a cute little town called .......... on the coast. While the beach there was a part of the Normandy Invasion, it was not one of the beaches stormed by the Americans. Still, the town was a great place to explore. We ate lunch there before getting back on the bus.

the main street in town

Our next stop was a group of bunkers that were used in the war. These were cool to look at, but honestly I wasn't much interested by them. Like I said, I'm not much of a military buff. But here are some nice pictures of them:

There was a hill beside one of them, so we were able to climb on top of it.

After that, we visited the cemetery where American soldiers are buried who participated and died during the storming of the beaches of France. The location is directly overlooking Omaha Beach, the beach that the Americans specifically invaded on D-Day. The cemetery reminded me a lot of Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, because of the consistency of headstones throughout:

However, there was the occasional Jew:

Although if there was no record of religion for the soldier, the simple cross was used.

We had a guide while touring the cemetery, who was really enjoyable. She told us many stories about some of the different people who are buried here. Most of them were very sentimental and wonderful. She also showed us a few famous graves:

Robert and Preston Niland: These two brothers are buried next to one another. They were the inspiration for the movie "Saving Private Ryan." Although the original story is slightly different from the movie plot...

 

Teddy's little brother. They died almost on the exact same day - just 26 years apart. While Quentin did not die during the battles of Normandy, he was killed in a plane crash over France. He was re-interred at this cemetery in order to be buried next to his brother.

Our last visit of the day was to the famous Omaha Beach. This was one of the five beaches stormed on D-Day. The taking of this beach was the responsibility of the Americans. While the objective of the invasion was eventually achieved, not everything went as smoothly as planned and there were about 3,000 American casualties.

Today it looks like a normal beach, as would be expected. However, walking along the shore, it is hard to imagine the kind of bloodshed that went on there 68 years ago.

 

There were randomly some horseback riders trotting down the beach.

Once we left the beach, we got back onto the bus one last time, dreading the three hour ride ahead of us. For our itinerary the next day included the intriguing Mont Saint Michel... But I'll get to that in my next post.

A bientot!