Normandy Tour - 4/24/2024
- sridgway38
- Apr 23, 2024
- 7 min read
We had done a test drive to the place where we would meet our tour leader last night so we knew where we were going. We needed to leave Aramanches before the hotel started breakfast so although they requested no food in the room we had gotten some pastries the night before that we carefully ate in the room so as not to leave any mess and then took the wrappings with us.
We left Aramanches and headed Plce de Quebec in Bayeux to meet our guide. We realized that one of the tires on the car was losing air but there wasn't much we could do about it before the tour. As we were trying to figure out the parking kiosk our tour guide Viktor found us and asked us to follow his van over to the train station where we were picking up the rest of the tour guests where the parking would be free. We waited for 4 guests to arrive by train from Paris and we set out. Viktor was young, in his 20s but he had grown up in the area and knew a lot about the area and the history. He first took us to see the German cemetery Le Cambe on the way to see the rest of the sites. He was careful to present a balanced historical view of the experiences of those soldiers, many of whom had to choice but to be part of the German army. The graves at the Cemetery were marked only with low stones and then there were groups of crosses throughout the cemetery. Familes of the fallen were not allowed to take the bodies back to Germany but the cemetery is maintained by a volunteer group and funded by a German commission. Originally there were also American and other Allied soldiers buried at this site in a second adjacent field but they were moved to other American cemeteries.
In the tour van, Viktor passed out a card that had the important sites of D-Day as well as important people. One of the people listed was General Matthew B Ridgway who was the general of the 101st Airborne division and who jumped into Bayeux on D-Day with his troops. He is a relative of Conrad.
Next we headed to a famous town where paratroopers from the 82nd airborne division jumped in near Sainte-Mère-Église Church. On the night of June 5th-6th paratroopers from the 82nd airborne division were mistakenly dropped onto the town of Sainte-Mère-Église which was occupied by the Germans. The town was made famous by the paratrooper John Steele whose parachute caught on the church's steeple where he hung for two hours while the fighting continued on the group below him before finally being cut free and taken prisoner by the Germans. This incident was later made famous by its depiction in the film The Longest Day.
An effigy of John Steele now hangs from the church's steeple. The church also contains two stain glass windows. One of the windows depicts the Virgin Mary and two paratroops, one of which is John Steele. The other shows Saint Michael the patron saint of paratroopers.
We toured the church and saw some of the stained glass windows that had been replaced on a prior anniversary of D-Day where there are representations of paratroopers jumping into the town.
After we toured the church we went to a nearby set of shops where the wrought iron fence still shows the marks of bullets from D-Day. We stopped into the coffee shop and had some coffee and pastries with the rest of our group before leaving the town. Next we headed to Utah beach where there is still an old German Bunker that was built behind a house which has been turned into a restaurant. The German resistance at Utah beach was less than at Omaha due to a series of mistakes and weather related delays so there were far fewer allied casualties at Utah.
There are several monuments and flags at the site of the Utah beach landing. It was fairly quiet and peaceful with beautiful views.
We had lunch at the restaraunt where the german bunker was built, but before going into the restaurant we called Avis to see if they could have someone meet us at the train station in Bayeux when we got back to help with the tire. Viktor helped us speak to the agent becasue she spoke only french. We got disconnected just before finalizing the plan, and decided to wait until we got back. At the restaurant we sat with the rest of our group, two couples who were traveling together. One was a quiet guy who retired and did family counseling, he reminded us of Conrad's brother Eric. The other was a character and when we went to pay for the lunch bill he told the bartender that Viktor wanted her phone number which made him blush madly. We paid for Viktor's lunch and headed back to the van. Next we headed off to Angoville-au-Plain Church.
Early in the morning on D-Day, allied paratroopers dropped all over the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy in advance of the beach landings that would happen after sunrise. The U.S. 101st Airborne Division parachuted in behind Utah Beach with the mission of destroying a German strategic route near the tiny hamlet of Angoville-au-Plain, and the village became the site of an intense battle.
Amid the fighting, a pair of U.S. Army medics from the 501st regiment, Bob Wright and Ken Moore, set up an aid station in the hamlet’s 700-year-old church. Here, they treated both Allied and German soldiers. The pews were used as makeshift beds, and the bloodstains from wounded soldiers can be seen even today.
Wright and Moore braved the battlefield looking for wounded to bring back to the church and treat. The brave medics refused to allow weapons inside of the church, and soldiers on both sides heeded their request. At one time, a mortar shell fell through the roof of the church, shattering a floor tile, but it did not hit anyone and it did not explode. Perhaps the place was truly blessed. Two days after D-Day, two German soldiers emerged from hiding in the belfry and promptly surrendered.
Today, the church is little-known to many visitors to Utah Beach, though various D-Day tours include the site and its incredible story. Maintenance of the church and grounds is funded purely on donations and the sales of postcards available inside.
As thanks for the work of the paratroopers on that night, the church installed commemorative stained glass windows: one dedicated to the pair of medics, and one to the 101st Airborne Division parachutists. Robert Wright expressed his wish to be buried at the church, but bureaucratic red tape made this almost impossible. In the end, some of his ashes were smuggled into France to be buried in the churchyard. The unofficial headstone simply reads “R.E.W.”, Wright’s initials.
We left the church and headed to Point Du Hoc which is between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach Pointe du Hoc is the name given to a small advance, a small cap, from the Normandy coast in the English Channel, located in the Calvados. It consists of a cliff 25 to 30 meters high preceded by a needle that advances into the sea and overlooks a pebble beach about ten meters wide at its feet. The point is in the commune of Cricqueville-en-Bessin.
It was the scene of one of the operations of the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Located between the beaches of Utah Beach (west) and Omaha Beach (east), the tip had been fortified by the Germans (WN 751) and, according to allied aerial reconnaissance, was equipped with heavy artillery pieces whose range threatened the two nearby beaches. It had been considered essential for the successful landing that the artillery pieces be decommissioned as soon as possible.
This mission was entrusted to the 2nd eAmerican Ranger Battalion, which managed to take control of the site at the cost of heavy losses. Subsequently, the artillery pieces proved to be only wooden decoys, the real batteries having been secretly moved by the Germans recently and previously and remote from 1,300 m inland, at the site of the Maisy battery, from where they will polish the landing beaches for three days (6-8 June).
Next we drove to Omaha beach where so many of the American forces died on D-Day. We parked in a marking lot just across from Les Braves Memorial Monument which can be found on the centre of Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. The monument consists of three elements: ‘The Wings of Hope’, ‘Rise, Freedom!’ and ‘The Wings of Fraternity’. An explanation of the monument stands on the Boulevard of Omaha Beach.
Next we drove to the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. At 5PM every day they lower the American flags while they play Taps, and the flags are then taken to the office to be safely stored. There were many people at the cemetery but you could hear a pin drop when they lowered the flags. The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located in Colleville-sur-Mer, on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 as the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its half mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing, in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial, are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.
The memorial consists of a semicircular colonnade with a loggia at each end containing large maps and narratives of the military operations; at the center is the bronze statue, “Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves.” An orientation table overlooking the beach depicts the landings in Normandy. Facing west at the memorial, one sees in the foreground the reflecting pool; beyond is the burial area with a circular chapel and, at the far end, granite statues representing the United States and France.
We took some time to walk through the cemetery before the tour ended and Viktor took us back to Bayeux. On the way a tow truck company called wanting to meet us at the train station so the woman we spoke to had actually managed to schedule it. The driver spoke only French so Viktor took over and made the arrangements. When we arrived back at the train station we saw the tow truck driver and went to show him the car. Viktor made sure that the rest of our party made their train and then came over and stayed with us to translate until the driver had the tire repaired, a quick job since he found a small piece of metal in teh tire and was able to use a plug to plug it. We thanked and tipped both of them and headed back to the hotel at Aramanche. We decided to have dinner at a different restaurant which was also very good and we headed in for an early night to bed as we were back on the road in the morning.