John again. We're now settled in at our last lodging in Paris, a hotel in the Canal-St. Martin district. Today has mostly been either downtime or travel time, riding the train from Bayeux back to Paris. (We got a lesson in the importance of reserving seats on the train, though - we got displaced from our original seats in Caen and the conductor had to locate space for us in one of the private berths, which caused some frustration mid-way.) The kids and I did take a quick pass through the Battle of Normandy Museum in Bayeux (not bad for it's size, but not up to the standards of either the Caen Memorial or either the British or American Airborne Museums). All or some of us may be going out to see some of the major sights lit up at night, though, if stamina holds out. I'm still wrapping my ankle and using the cane occasionally, but at least it doesn't feel like someone's shoving a red-hot poker through my ankle at every step, as on Wednesday.
Yesterday, though - no museums, just the raw places - or as raw as they are today.
Michelle described our first stop at the massive German cemetary at La Cambe, west of Bayeux and almost due south 8 kilometers from Point du Hoc. The site used to house one of the temporary American cemetaries, but in the late 40s through the 1950s many of the American dead were repatriated - families were given the choice to have their loved ones returned home or left in the ground they'd purchased with their lives. (The British & Commonwealth dead almost all remain in Normandy in a number of cemetaries, the one just outside Bayeux holding 4100 of the fallen, along with a few hundred German dead.)
La Cambe holds over 21,000 German dead, and even on a sunny morning it's a quiet, somewhat somber place. There's a large mound in the center with three large, dark crosses, surrounded by the burial blocks holding 3-5 German soldiers, many unknown, in each grave. On one wall inside the gatehouse is engraved in both German and French, "Here lie soldiers of Germany, forever at peace."
(By the way, our Battlebus guide Dale mentioned that each year about a dozen war dead, almost all German, are uncovered. Given the number of missing soldiers of both sides, Normandy looks to yield this crop for many years yet.)
Next we crossed over the N13, the major highway through this part of Normandy, and struck north to Point du Hoc. This was the site of a German battery capable of hitting both Utah & Omaha beaches. The USAF tried to destroy it from the air, and the Navy made a few tries from the sea, but as is always the case it took a bunch of young men with rifles and guts to do the job - US Army Rangers in one of their most celebrated exploits.
Picture this: you've spent the last 6 hours in a landing craft, bucking 5-foot waves while you & everyone else gets seasick, bailing out the craft with your helmets from time to time as the pumps can't keep up. Your mission - nothing much. Just land on a tiny sliver of beach, scale a 70-80 foot cliff, under fire, and clean the Germans out of their foritifications at the top. To do the job, there's 225 or so of you, equipped with rocket-fired grappling hooks, rope ladders, and extension ladders borrowed from the London fire department. Cake, right?
The Rangers did the job, even found the relocated guns inland and destroyed them, then held out for two days against repeated counterattacks until troops from Omaha Beach relieved them.
Point du Hoc was donated to the US by the French in 1979 and is officially US soil. Original bomb and shell craters cover much of the ground, and the original fortifications have been largely left intact. Ben had a great time scrambling around the gun casemates and bunkers.
Next we moved east to Vierville at the west end of Omaha Beach, and one of the bloodiest spots on D-Day. Another unit I served in, the 29th Infantry, originally a National Guard division Federalized at the beginning of the war, landed on this end of Omaha. The Vierville Draw saw some of the most horrific losses of the day for the Americans - if you've seen "Saving Private Ryan", this is where the real events took place. "SPR" compresses the time greatly, though - picture that lasting over three hours... one company of the 116th Infantry regiment ceased to exist on that stretch of beach, and one small town in Virigina lost 35 young men that morning.
There's not much left from 1944 there today: some sort of German fortification on the eastern wall of the draw, and the seawall down by the water. There are a number of monuments, though, including a very moving one paying tribute to the 29th Division, and another to the Rangers. This is the place where the Rangers got their motto - General Norman Cota of the 29th, moving up and down the beach spurring the men forward ("There's only two kinds of men on this beach, those who are dead and those who are gonna die, so move your asses inland!"), came across a group of Rangers and told them "Rangers, lead the way!" pointing up the draw. They did, with boys from Maryland and Virginia wearing blue & gray on their shoulders beside them (and troops from other units - one problem at Omaha was that landing craft kept putting men ashore in the wrong places).
After lunch overlooking the beach (indoors as the day was chilly & breezy), we drove eastward along Omaha beach and climbed back out at St. Laurent-sur-Mer, just west of the American Cemetary. This was another draw the 29th took, at high cost but not quite so dearly as Vierville.
We made our way back to Bayeux for a bit of snacking and souvenier shopping (Ben now has a wooden bow firing suction-cup arrows - how he pursuaded Michelle I have no idea!) and ended up at the hotel for some downtime and laundry.
I really wanted to eat at a place called "La Pommier", recommended by several guidebooks and the concierge of our hotel, but the kids were a bit leery. We did wind up there with a promise of pizza from the place across the street if we couldn't find something they could stand, but as Michelle said, the owner (who took our order, as well as everyone's) graciously made them chicken in cream sauce similar to what I've made for them before. The food was fantastic, every bit as good as advertised, and Dad got to scratch his itch to have some reasonably authentic Norman food (pork filets cooked in cider, yum!)
It's now time to decide on our plans for the evening - likely no more entries until we get home. Au revoir, and hope you've enjoyed peeking over our shoulders!
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