The Normandy Tour

The American Flag at Pointe du Hoc.

For those reading, I want to go ahead and apologize. This is Andrew blogging this time. I'm giving Sarah a break tonight because her fingers are sore from typing so much. OK, not really. I just begged her to let me have the blogging reigns for one night. She refused, but I eventually bugged the heck out of her until she was so annoyed that she just said, "Alright, whatever." And here we are. So, again, I'm sorry in advance if this blog post is terrible. Just so everybody knows, she will be proofing this. She is an English teacher after all.

Today was our much anticipated trip to Normandy and the WWII D-Day beaches. Let me first start off by letting you all know how long daylight lasts here in Paris. The sun doesn't go down all the way until about 11:15 p.m., and rises again at about 5:00 a.m. So when I woke up this morning ten minutes before the alarm went off at 5:05 (it was set for 5:15 b/c our minivan tour would pick us up at 6:30), Sarah freaked out because normally I am the first to wake up, it indicates we have overslept. Anyway, we didn't oversleep. Instead we packed our camera, camcorder, snacks, warm clothes and a terribly undersized umbrella and went outside to wait for our ride. It happened to be a very nice Volkswagon minivan (try finding one of those in East Tennessee) complete with a Frenchman tour guide appropriately named Francis, another couple in their late 50s, and a man from New York who was in Paris on business. So we boarded the van at about 6:40, and we were off to the beaches which sounded more like "behtches" when Francis would say it in his French accent (I know.....almost sounds like a curse word). Having the 3rd grade humor that we have, Sarah and I would almost burst out in laughter whenever our guide would refer to the "sandy, flat behtches" or "the Normandy Behtches".

Travel Tip #33: No matter how funny someone's foreign accent is, or how immature you are, don't laugh at it until you get back to the hotel/apartment.

I hate to paint the wrong picture of our tour guide, he was actually a very sharp guy. All "behtches" aside, he was very informative about anything anybody would want to know about D-Day, or France for that matter, or ANYTHING for that matter. This guy had an answer for each question we asked. He knew more about American history than anybody else in the van, and everybody else was American! He threw on a headset and kept us ingaged for the whole two-hour van ride. The best tour-guide we could've asked for. He was like a walking encyclopedia.

Travel Tip #34: If you plan on taking a Normandy Tour, make sure Francis is your guide. Nobody does it better.

The drive was beautiful. It was a relief to get out of the city for a day and see the Northern French countryside. There were farms, fields of hay, sugar beets, poppies, chateaus, and blue skies and beautiful green landscapes. Through the rolling hills, we made our way into Normandy.

One of Sarah's beautiful blurry background pictures.

When we arrived, it was around 45 degrees with a cold, light rain coming in sideways. After about ten minutes, we realized that our one-person umbrella was a lost cause, and we would just have to suck it up and deal with the unfavorable conditions. It was the least we could do. The weather was eerily similar to that of the D-Day invasion scene in Saving Private Ryan. The tone for our Normandy tour wouldn't have been right if it had been 70 and sunny. It was totally fitting for our visit to the beaches. First stop: Pointe du Hoc.

Pointe du Hoc was the area just between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach where the Germans were thought to be most equipped with massive weaponry. It was essential for the US and its allies to take out this cliffside position to make invasions on Omaha and Utah sucessful, being that the Pointe was strategically positioned to wipe out invaders on both beaches. When we got there, you could see just how heavily bombarded Pointe du Hoc had been. Much was left as it happened 64 years and 6 days ago on June 6, 1944. The German bunkers and bombed-out landscape were a sight to behold. We could see where bombs had exploded, blowing out the earth some 15 feet deep. This is said to be the most-heavily bombed area on all of D-Day, with over 10,000 tons of bombs. US Army Rangers (300 of them) were hand-picked for the assault. They used ladders borrowed from London fire departments before crossing the English Channel to reach the top of the cliff from their wobbling boats below to manually attack the Germans with bombs. Only a third of them would survive the assault. Still, this made it possible for Americans to eventually take the beaches of Omaha and Utah. After only 20 minutes to try to comprehend the significance of this it was time for our next stop: Omaha Beach.

The Ranger Memorial at Pointe du Hoc.

Of all the D-Day beaches, Omaha is perhaps the most well-documented especially thanks to Saving Private Ryan. The older man on our trip seemed to dismiss this film because it "is just a Hollywood movie with only 20 minutes of action." Historians and veterans both say that the depiction of battles in this film were as accurate as they have seen. Not that I have any place to speculate what war must be like, but I can't imagine that war is only about violence and battle scenes. Isn't it also about the stories? The individuals whose lives are affected and even destroyed? The men who offer up themselves as sacrifices to improve the lives of others? Yes, the violence and brutality is significant and should be explained, but how can it be understood without a perspective on the individual as well?

When we stepped out of the van, the barrenness of the beach was haunting. There was hardly a person in sight, and the sand that stretched some 200 yards looked like a sheet of orange spread across the shore. It was so flat in comparison to the steep cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. The hillside just above the beach provided the perfect opportunity for the Germans to obliterate the first wave of American troops. Our guide explained that 90% of these men died even before the second wave reached striking distance. The Germans had no margin for error because the more the Americans penetrated, the better chance they had of taking out German machine guns that were unloading 1200 rounds of ammunition per minute. U.S. success on Omaha would have been impossible without the efforts at Pointe du Hoc. Next stop: Langues sur Mer.

Us at Omaha Beach.

This area was interesting because actual weapons have been left in their place. Four massive German firearms were still in their concrete shelters, and we were able to walk through the cave-like structures. After leaving the beaches, we were off to our next stop: the American Cemetery.

One of the four guns still in tact at Longues sur Mer.

These hedgerows were an unexpected obstacle for American forces.

By far the most emotional part of our trip was the sight of the endless white crosses and stars of David in perfectly straight rows high above the beaches. Just as we arrived, the neatest thing happened. The weather shifted from cold and rainy to suprisingly sunny and mild. Again, very fitting for this point in our D-Day tour. If you remember in Saving Private Ryan the same thing happened in the cemetery scenes. Going to the beaches before the cemetery was definitely the correct order to take our tour. It gave us a chance to create what we think the atmosphere might have been like, then seeing the lives lost and sacrifices made for people like us. We had nearly a whole hour to look around and try to appreciate all of it. This sight alone would be reason enough to make this trip. Our indebtedness was magnified significanly after this emotional visit. After such an overwhelmingly powerful morning, we needed a break for lunch.

The American Cemetery covers 172.5 acres.

The statue in the center is a tribute to American youth.

The cemetery has 9,387 headstones.

Because there are so many, the crosses are divided into 10 sections, A-J.

The window inside the chapel.

This quote was a great last thought to end our trip today.

Us at the American Cemetery overlooking the English Channel.

This wall names the missing in action who gave their lives in this region.

We rode in the van for another fifteen minutes to Gold Beach where we stopped for lunch. While everyone else on our trip had specialties of Normandy including muscles and apple cider, I had a pizza and Sarah had pommes frites. We finished it off with a scoop of coffee flavored gelato. It had pieces of coffee beans in it. Definitely something Marble Slab should add to their menu. Last stop: Caen Memorial Museum.

This tank was placed on top of a German bunker overlooking Gold Beach.

Sarah's lunch of authentic French fries.

We started off by viewing a film with actual footage from D-Day. The screen was split in two with the left side depicting the allies and the right depicting the Germans. The best part of the film was when the screen split into three sections with the above separated by an image of what Omaha Beach looks like today. What a powerful way to show the contrast between past and present. We didn't have much time to linger in this museum, but the most interesting displays were the letters and first-hand accounts from the soldiers. I had never thought about how important batheing is to your psychological state until reading about their relief to finally be able to take a hot shower and cleanse themselves, maybe even symbolically, of the dirt and grime of battle. Next stop: Paris.

The Caen Memorial Museum.

The flags of each of the allies.

Incidentally, we ran into a bus full of German soldiers. One man in our van said they must have been trying to figure out what they did wrong.

When we made it back to the apartment tonight, we cooked the delicious parmesan ravioli and tomato sauce from the grocery. We thought we would get out for dessert and another baguette, but I couldn't stand watching Sarah take another picture of bread. Don't worry, she'll get another one tomorrow. Sorry if I let you down with this blog. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of myself either. Just wanted to let you know how special I thought this day was. She will be back tomorrow.

Travel Tip #35: When on vacation make sure to give your wife a much needed break from blogging. Surely she'll thank you later.