Normandy Beaches, Bayeux, American Cemetery

We set out at 8 am for a full day in Normandy. We had a nice view of Rouen as we left the city from our dock just in front of the magnificent cathedral, which we will visit tomorrow, and drove through the Norman countryside – cultivated fields, some green with wheat, barley and flax, some yellow with rapeseed flowers, some recently ploughed.; orchards of blooming apple trees; black and white Norman cows with their “sunglasses”; blond Limousin cows with newborns; half-timbered houses draped in wisteria in full bloom; simple stone Norman style churches with low towers; swans and ducks dibbling in streams.

I am not going to bore you all with an account of Operation Overlord – the D-Day landings. Most of you know all this; and it would take up too many pages. Suffice it to say that Operation Overlord was the code name for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe which began on June 6, 1994 and ended on August 19 (!!!) of the same year whe the allies crossed the Seine. Sixty odd years later, the Normandy invasion remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost 3 million troop crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy. There was absolutely no precedent for the generals upon which to draw. And they had to hope that the weather, moon and tides would be in their favor – they had a tiny window of opportunity. June 6th was hardly perfect, but it was good enough.

Operation Neptue was the code name for the initial assault phase of Operation Overlord. The primary allied forces in Normandy came from the US, Canada, the UK. After this phase, forces from other countries participated. The invasion was preceded by the overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks and naval bombardments. Then came the invasion which was launched from bases along the south coast of England, mainly Portsmouth.

There are so many wonderful stories of how the Allies fooled the Nazis into thinking they were going to invade from further north, in the Pas de Calais. It is a miracle that all the disinformation worked.

Our first stop along the miles and miles of Normandy beaches, where there were no natural harbors, was Arromaches-les-bains. This is where the first ever pref-fab harbor, or Mulberry Port, was built; it was Churchill’s brainchild and it was named Port Winston. Seventeen old ships crossed the English Channel under their own steam and were sunk by their crews bow to stern. Then 115 football-sized cement blocks, called Mulberries, were towed across the Channel and sunk, creating a four mile-long Dover. Then seven floating steel “pier heads” with extendable legs were set up and linked to shore by four mile-long floating roads made of concrete pontoons. Anti-aircraft guns were set up on the pontoons; within 6 days, 54,000 vehicles, 326,000 troops and 110,000 tons of goods had been delivered. The toehold in Normandy was secured and eleven months later Hitler was dead.

Today, you can still see the ruins of the harbor, especially at low tide – chunks of concrete of all shapes and sizes. There is a memorial to the US liberator of Arromanches, Sir Alexander Stanier. You could also see as far as Omaha Beach, one of the two US beaches.

Arromanches was the UK beach, code-named Gold. Just before arriving, we made a quick stop at Juno Beach, which was the Canadian Beach. Here we saw tanks and German bunkers and a small memorial. Canadian visitors were given the option to be dropped off here and picked up later.

For some reason – probably to do with timing, we visited Bayeux and then went back to the coast to visit Omaha Beach. I am going to continue with the beaches and get to Bayeux later.

Omaha Beach has many memorials to the American troops. A fairly recent one, right on the beach, sometimes submerged in water, is an amazing sculpture, called “Les Braves”, by Anilore Banon, and which consists of “Wings of Hope”, “Wings of Fraternity” and, the tallest, “Wings of Liberty”, made of steel embedded in the beach. There is no doubt that the French are eternally grateful to the US and they do not hesitate to express this in memorials and plaques.

This is the beach where several things went wrong on the 6th: the troops were dropped too far from the shore and, though the area was not heavily fortified, the cliffs here were manned by a crack German regiment. The loss of life was significant. From Omaha beach you can see the impressive cliffs of “Utah Beach”.

When D-Day was over, more than 135,000 med had been brought ashore, with losses of 10,000….far less than Ike had imagined. D-Day was just the beginning, however and it took weeks to advance a few miles. There was also the battle of the hedgerows – the Norman hedgerows very thick and bordered by ditches….perfect hiding places for the Germans!

I found the whole experience very moving. This period of history, despite all the books I’ve read and all the films I’ve seen, extremely emotional.

After leaving the beaches, we drove to Bayeux, the first city to be liberated. It is here that, on June 16th, 1944, de Gaulle made his first major speech, declaring unity with the Allies. Bayeux was the cradle of the Dukes of Normandy, where William the Conqueror, descendant of Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, was born. This is why the famous tapestry is housed here. The tapestry, commemorating William’s defeat of Harold of England and his subsequent conquest of England, was supposedly woven by Queen Mathilda, William’s wife. Apparently, this is a myth; it was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo on the occasion of the consecration of the original Romanesque church in 1077; it was probably woven by monks. It is basically an action-packed comic strip of weaving and embroidery. It tells the story of the Battles of Hastings and the events leading up to it. But is is done in a very amusing way and the lower order contains all sorts of animals, both real and mythic and, toward the end, decapitated soldiers – arms, heads and legs all over the places. Today the 230-foot long tapestry is displayed in a U-shaped case. It is a marvel of handiwork; the perspective of the horses going into battle is quite extraordinary for its time. The story is told in Latin, with some hints of Early French….if they did not have room to finish a sentence between illustrations, they just put the words under the first sentence….and the sizes varied. The colored wool has faded very little since the 11the century. Amazing! A wonderful work of art and historical document. (Amy, I bought myself the book!!!)

The town of Bayeux is lovely….a nucleus of 15th-19th century buildings. We did not have time to go into the cathedral because a table outside the cathedral in a lovely café called! The siren song of Kirs and croque madames in the full sunshine!!! Yum!

So then it was off to Omaha Beach, which I’ve already described. After Omaha, we went to the American Cemetery in Colleville sur Mer, the final resting place for about 10,000 servicemen who gave their life during the Normandy campaign. Their average age was 22. In addition to the white marble headstones (both crosses and stars of David) in endless rows, facing west toward the US, most of whom were identified, but not all, there is a wall of the missing – 1557 names of US soldiers who were never found. The grounds are beautifully groomed: lush grass; heathers for remembrance, a reflecting pool, a chapel and a colonnade with loggias at each end containing maps and narratives of the Normandy invasion. I the center is a bronze statue of a youth reaching to heaven, called “The Spirit of American Youth”.

Our guides gave us all bouquets of flowers. We went off to find a grave upon which to lay them. Not having found a serviceman from Rhode Island, I laid mine on the headstone of an unknown soldier. Connie laid hers on that of a soldier from Colorado. We walked to the northern edge of the cemetery – Omaha Beach was spread out before us.

It was a very, very emotional day.