Today was an emotional day full of many sights and a new appreciation for my grandpa and papa. Today I went on the Overlord tours of Omaha and Utah beaches. I decided to go on a full day tour. Best idea ever!! I learned so much and got to have an understanding of the battles, personal stories of people, and the reason for the high attrition rate that I wouldn't have if I hadn't gone. Our little band of 7 Americans and South Africans started our morning with our French guide Brigette. She was fabulous! Anyone who's ever been on a tour or at a museum with me knows I'm a hard judge of character because of my experience in the museum world. She maneuvered flawlessly all day answering the barrage questions of a WWII buff, an AP European History teacher, AND me! ;) While Overlord offers a variety of tours, if you're an American who isn't really up on history (or even if you are) the Omaha/Utah tour is the one for you. She mixed enough groundwork and intricate details to satisfy both camps. I only wish I could go on her tour tomorrow that was the British and Canadian beaches! Ok... gush over! :) Dad, I kept thinking of you.. We HAVE to go back sometime together and do the tours K?!
She started our tour at the German bunkers high on the bluff overlooking Omaha on the east side of the beach. Before I get into the war part of it, the first thing we noticed on the cliffs was the fields of wildflowers strewn about. The brightest color was the red. The red poppies that the VFW sells instantly came to mind. I know they are a symbol of WWI, but it became very clear WHY those were used. She explained that the Allies needed to gain the 62 miles of Norman coast so that they could establish liberate the harbor to the North (Ch...) and then use that as their main infiltration point into France. No one but Rommel (the German general) thought the Allies would attack the French coast... and Rommel wasn't expecting the attack in the horrible weather that actually delayed the attacks by 1 day. Rommel was going to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday!
When you look at the battles you can see how there were MANY struggles, but I felt like I could see the Lord's hand at work in multiple places as that morning unfolded with things that Brigette simply said were " a good thing". To stand on Omaha's beach and look up at the bluffs and have her explain and point out where the guns were and how there were guns to the front and on each side shooting at them was overwhelming. We left the beach very quiet contemplating the massive loss of life. On Omaha Beach alone in the first 5 MINUTES we lost 1,000 men! The battle raged from 6:30am-3pm. Overall that beach alone had 4,000 casualties (KIA, MIA, wounded). I thought that standing in the fields at Antietam and Gettysburg and picturing the battle raging was something. If things had gone according to plans, things would've been much different, but unfortunately the weather conditions made the pilots dropping the bombs on what was to be the guns above Omaha were very far off course, and ended up bombing farm fields to the northwest instead. This constant barrage of firing from guns on all directions changed the outcome of the attack drastically. The feelings there on the beach are something you almost can't explain, the sadness and tears over the loss of lives mixed with the pride for men who served fighting for the freedom of people they'd never met, people who weren't their own.
As we moved on to the cemetery, I was once again impressed by the beautiful cemetery that was there. I had been there the night before and watched a very moving ceremony as they unfurled the American flag over the thousands of graves and then folded it, to be followed by taps played by a single bugler. It was a moment of pride in my nation, and I definitely cried! I visited the wall of the missing, and the quiet rose garden that is there. Then headed down to see the grave of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and his brother Quintin. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was a general in the war, and died in 1944 (in his sleep of a heart attack). The cemetery was so quiet and serene. They have done a beautiful job maintaining it. The French government gave it to the American government after the war as a place to bury the massive number of dead because they were in several scattered temporary cemeteries around the Norman coast.
To tell you everywhere we went and saw things would take all day, so I'm only sharing about a few....
Pont du Hoc, is the furthest point extending out over the bluffs. It gives a beautiful view of the Norman coast. I took a few minutes there to walk and rewind time a few hundred more years, and envision the coast to what it must've looked like when the Normans and William the Conqueror (aka my family) arrived there over 900 years ago. I don't think the countryside and bluffs have changed much. Back to WWII... Pont du Hoc is where the 2nd Ranger brigade climbed the 70ft wall with grappling hooks and ladders. The plan was to use the grappling hooks, but the walls were so slick from the weather, that the ladders the London fire department had sent over on boats worked well too. They started their ascent to capture the rumored 5 guns at the top of the cliff. When all 225 of them had scaled the cliff in an hour, they realized the guns were not there. They set out in search of them tracking the mudprints the Germans had left and found the guns pretty much undefended. As Brigette says.. "Norman cider and French women helped win the war" as the Germans had a night with far too much cider and in the company of French women. Like their Hessian ancestors in Valley Forge, they were caught unprepared and the Americans completed their mission. However, backup for the Americans was slow to come, and by June 8th, there 90 remaining.
Churches where paratroopers were caught on spires, flooded fields where ordinary French men courageously plucked paratroopers from the waters in their boats, homes used as hospitals for both Americans and Germans, and other courageous stories filled my day.
I have a new appreciation for what happened to American soldiers that horrible morning in June, and then until Normandy was finally captured in August. The stories she told us as we moved through the day made me wish I could run home and hug and thank my Papa and Grandpa for their service and bravery to liberate and enforce freedom in Europe. I more than ever wish I could ask them their stories. I guess now I need to dig out Grandpa's book with missions so I can see where he was. In retrospect, I should've done that before coming here. The nation of France has risen back from the ashes and rubble (literally) that was World War II. Many of the villages and hamlets we drove through today looked just the same as they did in the 1940s when the war raged, but the growth of the country and its people is a beautiful reminder of healing. Like the poppies on the hill at the start of the morning, it was a good reminder that even in the midst of dark and horrific times in life when nothing seems to be as it should or was, God uses those moments to teach us and make beautiful things from them in our lives. It reminds me of that song... "you make beautiful things out of me."
fields with poppies
German guns
at pont du hoc
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