Heaven to Hell - Part Deux

Pulled out of Mont-St-Michel about 1:30pm headed east to complete a bucket list item.  Normandy.

Headed east in Normandy,  seeing names burned into memory and history.  Landing on the Normandy beaches served to cut off the Contentin peninsula, isolating the deep water port of Cherbourg.

German resistance at Cherbourg was so strong and fanatical, that, when finally captured on 26 June, the port was virtually useless for several months afterward.  Caen was a major objective for the British in the early days of the invasion, but heavy resistance stalled Montgomery's Second Army until  Patton made his famous break-out at Saint Lô on July 24th.



Arrived at Bayeux about 3:00pm and found a room downtown at the Hotel Reine Mathilda.  Nice inexpensive room with my primary requirements, hot water, bed, and wireless internet connection.  All this for 55€.  I was second guessing my decision about 10:30pm when the young kids next door came in.  I was pretty sure I'd be able to hear hair hit the floor when  the young lady performed her evening brushing ritual, but,  fortunately, they went quietly off to sleep, and so did I, awakening fresh the next morning.

About a block down the street from the hotel, the ubiquitous beautiful church.

One of the most beautiful carved wooden doors I've ever seen. 

As much as I admired the church, I came for other reasons so, firing up the old Garmin, I head northwest on N13 toward a spot between the small villages of Colleville-Sur-Mer and Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer...Omaha Beach.


Omaha Beach

Certainly not an overly impressive beach to a lad born and raised near Daytona Beach, Florida.



I was somewhat surprised to find the sand an orangey-tan, and not white (or gray), as represented by the hours of black-and-white film coverage I've seen over the years.  (Not to mention that wallowed in by Tom Hanks whenever he and his Rangers seemingly single-handedly captured Point-du-Hoc.)

I get the same feeling here I get at every battlefield I visit:  I understand every step they took...except the first one.  I do not know how they take the first one.   I think it has to do with how the military makes you a unit and you will do anything, even walk into blazing fire, to not let the buddy beside you down.


Open sand, or gravity slowing elevations?  Take your pick, neither were safe that day.  But at least the slope offered some spare cover.

North toward Point Du Hoc

It's getting a little late so I turn back toward Colleville-Sur-Mer to the American Cemetery there.

 This is the view walking down the path toward the cemetery.  A calm view looking out on the English Channel.

Then you look to the left....

 Over 9,000 U.S. Servicemen, the vast majority between 20 and 30 years of age

 HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY

A COMRADE IN ARMS

KNOWN BUT TO GOD

 The first cross on the first row:

ANTHONY S. BILOTTI

CY  USNR

NEW JERSEY,   JUNE 8, 1944

 Having long been a student of the U.S. Civil War, its causes, its leaders, its battles, and its strident state loyalties, as I walk this cemetery I understand, seeing Southerner next to Yankee next to Westerner, that WWII forged the metal melded in the crucible of that long ago sectional struggle.  We are one.  And
"tea parties" clamoring to break such a union because things aren't going as they would like are absurd.   I've mentioned my theory that God didn't make enough horses heads to go around, haven't I?

As I leave the cemetery I'm stopped by the sound of a single trumpet blowing taps.  I stop, turn toward the sound and find myself looking at the memorial sculpture that is the centerpiece of the memorial.  It was eerie.  Even crusty old farts can choke up.

The Bucket List Photo


 








Went back to the hotel, updated the blog, read using my Kindle (yeah, I really like it), and slept like an angel.
In fact, not on Betsy, I actually slept in this morning, then headed north to Point Du Hoc about 9:30 am.

Point Du Hoc
(Courtesy of the web)

Rangers on June 6, 1944.
Obviously taken after the capture of the site.  (See the "leaders" at the top looking down?)

The initial attack was carried out by three companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion.  Only 225 men and officers, a seemingly small force to take such a well fortified position, but, space is everything in battle, and, I suspect, more than that and they'd become an impediment to each other.  Planned reinforcements (500+) didn't make it because the initial attack was forty minutes late starting and, by the time the signal flares were sent off announcing capture and requesting reinforcement, the allocated force of Rangers had already been deployed to Omaha beach.  This proved fateful because the force had to withstand significant counter-attacks for the next two days.  By the time they were relieved the original 225 men were down to 95, a very high casualty rate.

Looking northwest from Point Du Hoc

Southeast

Down

Gun Emplacement

Ammo Bunker

Your guess is as good as mine.

Inside looking out.

Outside looking in.
(Little late to ask, but do they have poisonous snakes in France?)







I left Point Du Hoc heading to Carentan, the center of U.S. 101st Airborne activity during the Normandy invasion.  Their story is well known from the mini-series 'Band of Brothers' produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Church in Carentan

In the final analysis, after all these years, it's just sign posts and churches to denote places and events. Each has it's own little museum and tourist trap...just as we do in the states.  But these were serious places 65+ years ago.  And should be serious memories today.

"Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana

A short trip down the highway to the center of the 82nd Airborne offensive on D-Day

St-Mere-Eglise

Here the church is more significant.

It's actually a piece of the history of the attack.

Memorial depicting the famous incident where U.S. paratrooper John Steele (505th PIR) snagged his chute on the church and hung helplessly for several hours playing dead.  He was eventually captured by the Germans, escaped, then rejoined his unit in the attack which took the town.



Another great trip.  Thanks for the company.