Dateline: Honfleur, France. After reading about the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, for most of my life, and seeing several films about these events(Longest Day, Private Ryan) as well, today I finally saw the place where it all took place. It takes no military genius to figure out why Omaha Beach was chosen, there’s a nice route off the beach at Omaha that is not at all typical of this coastline, most of which is a series of cliffs.
We also saw the artificial harbor that was created out of gigantic concrete boxes called “mulberries” which were created in England, towed across the channel by tugs, and sunk in a perimeter to create a harbor at Arromanches, aka Gold Beach. Some old ships were mixed in with the concrete boxes to form the breakwater and they’ve rusted out to the point where they are no longer visible. The so-called mulberry boxes are still very much there and they form a sort of watery Stonehenge. Some of the pontoons used to make the jetties and floating docks are still in evidence on the beach. All of the anti-landing craft pyramids are gone.
We saw some German pillboxes and artillery emplacements built by the Organisation Todt. Many are still in good shape 65 years later. The huge craters surrounding them caused by bombs and naval shells suggest they needed to be as strong as they are. Our guide suggested that round craters are caused by bombs and oval or oblong craters are caused by shells – makes sense.
We also saw the U.S. cemetery on the bluff above Omaha Beach. I suppose there were 10 thousand graves there, extraordinarily sad but very well tended and beautiful. We heard a small ceremony consisting of the national anthem, followed by taps. Then we each took a rose and decorated a grave with it. People picked someone from their state, or whatever. I picked a lad from Ohio whose first name was “Chester.” A number of graves were marked “Here lies a soldier known only to God” as I guess corpses get separated from their dog tags.
It was a long day, we finished up atop the cliffs of Point du Hoc, between Omaha and Utah Beaches. To this day it appears to have been a daunting climb for the Rangers. Any number of entrepreneurs have founded “museums” for profit along this coast. I suppose the hardware isn’t difficult to collect, some of the softer stuff like uniforms might have deteriorated beyond use. The hardware doesn’t need to have been used on this beach, merely be of the same type. Whatever works….
