Normandy, Part II - The Beaches

D-Day (6 June 1944 - 0630 [aka H-Hour]):

The Germans knew an Allied invasion was coming, but they were out-flanked, out-witted and in some cases out of luck on D-Day.

Fake invasion plans washed-up on an Allied corpse in France. General Patton gave a glorious and well-publicized speech in Dover surrounded by his "Ghost Army" (aka First US Army Group [FUSAG]), fueling German suspicions that Patton would lead the invasion, and that invasion would begin in Calais.

Rough weather on the English Channel convinced the Germans that--wherever it began--an invasion wasn't imminent. So General Rommel went home to Germany for his wife's 50th birthday, coincidentally on D-Day itself.

German troops weren't trained to engage the Panzer units without the authority of either their General or their Führer--the latter took a sleeping pill the night before and couldn't be disturbed.  

In preparation for the invasion, the French Resistance gave the Allies German troop levels, ammunition dumps, fortifications, and the location of German guns. They also pulled down phone lines, blew up train tracks and were otherwise annoying to the Germans both before and during the invasion.

At 0630 on June 6th, 1944 it all came together in the largest amphibious assault the world has ever known. French Commandos invaded Juno Beach with the Canadians. The British and Australians invaded Gold and Sword Beaches, and the Americans took Utah and Omaha beachheads.



The kids say I've been obsessed with D-Day since we visited the Normandy and that may be true, but in truth, I was half-way there before we arrived, and I'm pretty sure any person would be obsessed with Operation Overlord (wickedly cool name) after visiting the beaches where the land invasion began. 

Although some beaches now host resorts, swimmers, and sail-driven beach craft, there are still landing areas that look no different now than they did the day after D-Day.  Pointe du Hoc is one of those places.

Pointe du Hoc:

Pointe du Hoc is the highest point between Omaha and Utah Beaches, and was the focus of a US Ranger operation early on D-Day in order to both deprive the Germans of this vantage point, and destroy six German guns capable of firing upon invading Allied troops. 

Pointe du Hoc is still littered with craters from Allied bombs which carpeted the area hours before the Rangers landed on the beach; scaled the side of a 90 foot cliff; and threw incendiary grenades into the pill box machine gun nests at the top.  There are still burn marks on the pill box ceilings and the area is considered a cemetery since remains are assumed to be present in the craters. 

This sounds pretty gross, but it didn't keep the kids from running up and down the craters yelling, "Yay!" or running from opposite sides, and colliding at the bottom.  When we corrected them--albeit halfheartedly since other people's kids were similarly disrespectful and no one seemed to care--the boy reminded us that if there were human remains at the bottom of the craters, they were from the wrong side of the war, so there was really no reason to show restraint.  I'm not saying we necessarily agreed with the boy, but just let me say it was hard to be indignant on a German soldiers' behalf after seeing Mauthausen. So, we forgot our humanity and gave the kids free reign to run and explore Pointe du Hoc craters, bunkers, and pill boxes, and, sadly, they had a marvelous time.   

Half of the Rangers' mission was to disable six large guns on Pointe du Hoc, and you can almost hear them cursing when they found the gun mounts empty.  In fact, I believe I cursed even though we never expected to find the guns (we read ahead).  Now, before you blame the French Resistance for not telling the Rangers the guns were gone, you should know that they did tell us, but the message never made it to the Rangers. It should also be noted that the French made the invasion of Pointe du Hoc possible by providing needed reconnaissance (I wonder how you say that word in French...) using the measurements and observations of a blind man (a piano tuner, in fact) who walked around the fortification freely since the Germans didn't find him threatening.  (I promise I'm not making this stuff up.)  We also need to thank the London Fire Brigade for lending us some ladders to get up the cliff (also a true story).

Most of all, we need to thank the 200 elite US Rangers (2nd Ranger Battalion) as well as their leader, Colonel Rudder, and the British Commandos who trained the Rangers because unlike the German forces, the Rangers were trained to act with minimal direction, modify their strategy as circumstances changed, and complete the mission even if the reality looked nothing like the plan. And the reality of Pointe du Hoc looked nothing like the plan or the map, and this is not a slight against the blind man. 

Now, I've never run onto a beach while someone shot at me. I've also never climbed up a cliff while bullets rained down on my head, knowing I had 30 minutes to make it to the top before the tide drowned me, but I know enough to know it wouldn't be the job for me. I also know that once making it to the top of the cliff and disabling a gun nest or two, I'd call it a day instead of following tire tracks a half-mile inland to find the guns missing from their mounts. Now, if I did find the guns, I'd go back to the beach once I noticed their proximity (100 yards) to German troops of overwhelming numbers. To be sure, I don't see myself sneaking up to those guns and using incendiary (aka thermite) grenades to fuse the traversing mechanisms the way First Sergeant Leonard Lommell did. I agree that this was the right thing to do. I just don't see myself doing it. Now, before you call me a coward (which I am) you should know the Rangers were running out of ammunition. (And did I mention the cliff and the gun nests?!)  I'm also going to throw my daughter under the bus and tell you that she has PTSD from the tent blowing over in Switzerland. So bravery clearly does not run in our family (no offense to my big brother who may be reading this.  He's much braver than we.  Much, much braver. [Hopefully, this will save me from a serious noogie at Christmas time]). 

So, although "Operation Overlord" is probably the coolest name ever given a military endeavor and the title "Supreme Allied Commander" is at least as cool as "Holy Roman Emperor" (whisper:  it's actually cooler but I don't want to get yelled at by the Medieval Lobby), I deserve association with neither.  I'm not fishing for compliments here.  It's something I've come to accept and freely admit.  In any event, they stopped giving out titles like "Holy Roman Emperor" a long time before I was born.  So, maybe one can't really reach one's full courageous potential until these titles are dangled like a carrot in front of one's nose, but I doubt it.  This sort of bravery comes naturally and the US Rangers just had it.

The point of Pointe du Hoc 

The monument to the Rangers at the top of the point.

 The German pill box at the top of the point.

Looking down the beach from the pill box.  The Rangers would have climbed over the nearest ledge.

Craters around a gun emplacement at Pointe du Hoc.  The girl counted 67 craters before she became tired.  We also found that one would need to stand in a 6" x10' area in some places to avoid getting hit by the bombs that fell before the invasion, not to mention the shrapnel.  So, the Germans who survived the bombardment outside the bunkers were either very lucky, or very skinny.

A nearly busted bunker

An empty gun emplacement.

View from inside the gun emplacement

I promise I won't go into this much detail for Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.  First, because you probably know more about them than I do, and, second, because--with the exception of the anti-ship debris in the water of Omaha Beach (see below picture)--the state of the beaches doesn't evoke scenes of battle as clearly as Pointe du Hoc or as clearly as the Hollywood movies you've already seen.  In fact, The Longest Day (a term coined by General Rommel) is a lot closer to reality than you expect from a John Wayne movie (No offense to John Wayne, but the movie where he pretends to be an American Indian [braids and all] is madness!).

What I will say is that it's hard to imagine sailing from the US to England two years before the invasion on a flimsy ship which was quickly riveted together (my grandfather's words) with the knowledge that a U-boat attack would sink the ship quicker than your drills showed you could make it above decks (also my grandfather's words).  Add sea-sickness.  Add not enough shelter in England for two million US troops, so you're bunking with the locals (this part actually sounds alright).  Add fighting with the British troops at local dance halls because they say you're "Over sexed, overpaid, and over here," and you counter that they're "Under sexed, underpaid, and under Eisenhower" (actually, that sounds kind of fun too).  Add numerous drills where real people die (see below monument to 946 men lost during a mock invasion the April before D-Day [many drown after falling off of Jacob's Ladders wearing heavy equipment]).  Add waiting in staging camps for days before being briefed on Operation Overlord and on intelligence provided by the French Resistance and aerial reconnaissance flights.  Add embarking from England in high seas.  Add decks filled with the sick and the product of their sickness.  Add fears of U-boat attacks on the English Channel. Add non-sick troops on deck marveling at the number of Allied bombers above them and Allied Bombers marveling at the number of ships below.  Add transferring to Higgins Boats in high seas and the threat of falling overboard.  Add more sea sickness.  Add landing on a beach a kilometer away from the spot you're meant to land.  Add men in heavy equipment drowning when dropped too far from the beach.  Add barbed wire, 88mm German guns, land mines, and trenches.  Add anti-tank defenses, fixed fortifications, and general confusion.  Add limited communication with the ships and, therefore, no hope of relief via ship fire power.  Add waves of men running into previous waves pinned-down on the beach by "walls of lead" in front of them.  And I believe you have a rough outline of what the invading Allied troops experienced on and before D-Day.

There were 200 deaths at Utah Beach (the beach where Teddy Roosevelt's son landed); 340 were lost at Juno; 1,000 lost on Sword; 1,000 lost on Gold; and 2,000 lost on Omaha Beach.

(Above and Below):  Utah Beach

(Above and Below):  Monuments at Utah Beach

1st Engineer Special Brigade Monument at Utah Beach

Memorial within a German bunker at Utah Beach.  Picture of General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr on the right.  He landed with the troops on D-Day carrying only a cane and purportedly stating, "Let's start the war from here."  He died of a heart attack about a month after the landing, and he is buried at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. 

A Sherman Tank pointing inland from Utah Beach

(Above and Below):  The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach

(Above and Below):  The British Cemetery at Bayeux.

The British Cemetery at Bayeux.

Memorial park near the British Cemetery at Bayeux.

If you visit Normandy and you're frustrated by the missing weaponry at Pointe du Hoc, there is one place where you can see what German guns looked like on D-Day.  This place is Longues-sur-Mer.

A perfectly preserved gun at Longues-sur-Mer.

A not-so-lucky gun at Longues-sur-Mer.

Eisenhower prepared his resignation before D-Day in case the invasion proved a failure. Visiting Normandy beaches reminds one that because of the efforts of our grandparents and the grandparents of our allies, that letter of resignation was never deemed necessary.  

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Normandy, Part I - The Airborne Invasion

As you travel north in France, two things happen:  street and boulevard names change to those of US Presidents and British Prime Ministers, and the air becomes heavy with memories of World War II battles with staggering casualties.  Now, to be honest, no one else in the car felt this heaviness, and maybe I miss my grandfathers too much, or maybe I watched too many movies about the D-Day landings, but it seems every town name, bridge, and historic marker is a sober reminder of WWII losses and the tragedy felt there and at home.

By the time we reached the parking lot of the US Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach, it felt like we were outside a funeral home about to attend the wake of someone close to us.  I felt the same desire to flee, the same heaviness on my chest, and the same fear that any poignant comment would cause a breakdown of emotion.  (On a related note, don't forget your sunglasses when you visit.)  I can't explain why nearly 70 years isn't enough time to dull the power of this place, but it isn't...it doesn't come close. 

What is also moving about Normandy are the abundance of Allied flags, pictures, monuments, and warm messages of welcome.  It seems every public building displays a US flag and every business displays pictures of Allied soldiers liberating their town.  The hospital in St. Lo is named the "Franco-American Memorial Hospital" and there is a monument in the center of town thanking the city of Baltimore, Maryland for providing the funds to rebuild.  Although US/French relations have suffered in the last 30 years, and many Americans think that the sacrifices of our grandfathers have been forgotten, this point and this distance are not in any way evident in the towns of Northern France. 

If you want some perspective on how many US flags you can expect to see in Normandy, imagine Washington, DC on the 4th of July, then remember that this region is decorated this way every day of the year.

Flags in Bayeux, France

A welcome sign in St. Mere-Eglise, France.  If you know anything about the French, you know that putting the English word for "Welcome" before the French word is a painfully sincere sentiment of gratitude.

A restaurant sign in Bayeux, France

A picture hanging on the street in St. Mere-Eglise, France

(Above): Monuments to the 101st and 82nd Airborne in St. Mere-Eglise.

D-Day (June 6, 1944 - Midnight - 2am):

No matter how much you think you know about D-Day, it's impossible to visit Normandy without learning fascinating new details you wish your teachers had shared with you in high school. In fact, you may tell yourself repeatedly that if these facts were made known to you back then, you would have paid attention.  You might even have grabbed an extra book from the library and called your grandparents to ask what they were doing on D-Day.  Where were they, and how did they know invasion was underway?

Before we arrived in St. Mere-Eglise, our first battlefield stop, I knew that the Airborne dropped into France during the early morning hours of D-Day.  I also knew that they were miss-dropped all over the French countryside, but sadly, this knowledge can be traced to watching Saving Private Ryan rather than my high school history classes.  In my teachers' defense, the WWII chapters were at the end of the textbooks which we didn't reach until the end of the year...which was about the same time the teachers were rushing to cover material before summer break, and the students were daydreaming about the end of school and the possibility of one month of warm weather (slight Wisconsin summer exaggeration).  So, it's possible we learned about the 82nd and 101st Airborne dropping and drowning in flooded fields, dropping into burning buildings as their munitions blew up, and getting stuck on church steeples while German soldiers shot at them from the square below, but I think I would have remembered that lecture.  I also would have remembered hearing that the British paratroopers dropped into France and landed in wooden gliders in complete darkness near Caen at the same time the Americans jumped out of airplanes near St. Mere-Eglise (see below map of Airborne drop zones), but this must have been in the last chapter of our textbooks--the one no one got a chance to read.

What we definitely learned in Normandy--with the assistance of our children who wouldn't stop repeatedly pressing dog training clickers in the Utah Beach gift shop--was that clickers were used by the Airborne to communicate with one another in the dark after their drop. We also learned that the misdrops were in some way an advantage to the Allies since the Germans were paralyzed by the numerous sightings which made them overestimate the size of Allied Airborne troops.  And we learned that the French Resistance played a major role in the intelligence behind the operation, as well as disrupting German communications once the invasion was underway.

St. Mere-Eglise:

St. Mere-Eglise (see map above) was the first town liberated after D-Day, and when you walk to the Our Lady of Peace Church, it is easy to see why. The Airborne dropped directly into the town and into direct combat with the Germans. Our Lady of Peace is a good place to start your visit since it displays the figure of an American paratrooper hanging off the outside (see picture below), and stained glass memorials to those paratroopers on the inside (also below). 

If you're like me, you'll feel a flash of anger at seeing the 82nd Airborne paratrooper, John Steele, hanging from the steeple before you realize that this is a tribute and not a jab.  (Apparently, trust is not something I freely give....though the picture of John Steele below seems to indicate a similar lack of trust.) You may also experience shock at seeing military depictions on church stained glass, but you will soon remember that there are a lot of military figures in European churches (Joan of Arc, various knights, etc); the original glass was probably destroyed during the war and not punched-out to make room for the paratroopers; and at the end of the day, they're our military figures. 

A statue of John Steele hanging off the Our Lady of Peace church steeple.  An interesting tidbit is that the ringing bells of the church caused him temporary deafness.

A picture of John Steele taken during a return trip to St. Mere-Eglise.

Stained glass inside Our Lady of Peace Church in St. Mere-Eglise.  Note the Airborne symbol on the upper left; the parachutes throughout upper middle; "6 June 1944" on the middle left and right; the quote, "In memory of those who through their sacrifice liberated St. Mere-Eglise," on the bottom left; "They came back" in the bottom middle; and on the right side, middle, the word "Ready" - Presumably a reference to the 82nd Airborne's Ready Brigade.

Stained glass inside Our Lady of Peace Church in St. Mere-Eglise.  Note the parachutes throughout the picture and the quote at the bottom that reads "...in memory of those who by their courage and their sacrifice have liberated St. Mere-Eglise and France."

We found no reference to how John Steele stayed alive hanging helplessly from the Our Lady of Peace Church steeple, however, the answer came at the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach when we found the below tribute to Sgt John Ray who landed in the courtyard of the church, mortally wounded, but was still able to kill a German soldier before that soldier could kill John Steele.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth

Author of:  Letters to Salthill

 

The Loire Valley, Part II and International Stalking

Now, I know what you're thinking, “There she goes stalking European ex-boyfriends again,” but I haven't done that for at least 15 years and definitely not since I've been married.  I also had no idea we'd run into him again after Dürnstein, and it was my French friend's idea to go to the Fontevraud Abbey in the first place.  So, how could I know we'd walk into the nave and there he'd be, lying next to his dead mother?  Actually, that's an exaggeration.  He was lying next to his sister-in-law, not his mother. (I don't know what happened to his wife.)  His father's tomb was positioned near his head and his mother's feet rested above his sister-in-law....which I assume is an analogy for their relationship in life.  So, by now you've probably figured out that the man I inadvertently stalked in Europe was not an ex-boyfriend, but King Richard I (aka King Richard the Lion Heart). 

After we left him in Dürnstein, Austria (http://www.wirthsummer2012.blogspot.com/2012/07/durnstein-enns-and-krems-austria.html), we didn't see hide nor hair of him until the Loire Valley and I certainly didn't expect to see him in France....forgetting of course that the English occupied much of northern France off and on for hundreds of years, and they clearly still occupied it when Richard, his parents and sister-in-law died. As awkward as it was to run into him again, I admit I felt badly for him, entombed so close to his mother.  Now, I've got nothing against moms, but you'll remember that this particular woman chased him down on his way to a Crusade, then forced him to marry a woman he presumably didn't love. And when Richard died his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, moved his body to Fontevraud where she spent her remaining years. (Before you ask, Blondell was nowhere in sight and one assumes he failed to make the burial guest list.) 

Some say the tombs were emptied during the French Revolution, but we didn't open them to check. If they were empty and the remains were in fact scattered, then that was the only hope Richard had of escaping his mother.

(Above and Below: Richard the Lion Heart [lower right])

When you tour Fontevraud Abbey, the church is the first building you enter but it is neither the largest, nor the most impressive structure. The abbey is a rambling mass of hallways and courtyards and unexpectedly wide-open indoor spaces. A sign honors members of the French Resistance who were killed by the SS in a courtyard near Abbey buildings which were used as prisons. Since we had already seen a concentration camp, my children were somewhat numb to the plight of small groups of people. In fact, any number fewer than 100,000 people lost failed to get their attention at all. So, I should have known better than to translate the sign that announced 10 people were killed in this small courtyard. “Only 10 died?” my son asked, “They put up a sign for only 10 people?” By then, I was pretty used to whisper-yelling, “Shut up!” through clenched teeth.

In Europe, we were surprised to find thousand-year-old structures re-purposed for art exhibits, cafes, or concert venues.  The night we visited Carcassonne, we watched LMFAO fans congregate for an impending concert before a rain storm flushed us—and presumably them—out of town.  In Fontainveau, a modern raised walkway twisted through the entire courtyard of the area named La Madeleine, rising above and below itself easily doubling the length one expected to walk, and making the walker wish she had known the real distance before starting.  Off of this main courtyard, and up about 30 stairs, we found one enormous room filled with boat-like structures which appeared black in the red fiber-optic-lit space (picture below).  My point in mentioning this is that you never know what you're going to find when you walk into a French abbey--an old king, an art exhibit, an SS Prison, or all of the above.

 

Back to the mansions:  The rich and powerful flocked to the Loire Valley during the Hundred Years War since it was politically stable, had rich hunting grounds, and building materials could be transported down the Loire River easily.  In fact, builders barely needed to remove those materials from the boat since many of the chateaux are actually on the river.  Now, I have never looked at a lake or stream and thought of building a house there, and I have to admit I was embarrassed by the number of 600-year-old people who's imaginations clearly exceed my own.  In fact, on several occasions, while visiting the Chateau de Chenonceau, I thought of Catherine de' Medici's (of the Florence de' Medicis) idea to put a kitchen and gallery inside the footing of her personal Ponte Vecchio (pictured below) and thought, "Touché".  If I ever have several million dollars of disposable income, a Senator or two in my pocket, and a good civil engineer on speed dial, I'm building a house on the Mississippi River... or a creek somewhere.  Anyway, it will definitely happen!

(Above:) Inside the bridge gallery.

 

(Above and Below):  The Chateau de Chenonceau gardens

As nice as the Chateau de Chenonceau gardens are, the most famous gardens are found at the Chateau de Villandry.  We didn't see the inside of the Chateau de Villandry because by then we were chateau'd-out...or maybe we ran out of money for the week (I can't remember)....but the gardens were spectacular (pictured below).

  

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill