Normandy beaches and D day landings

Third night in a row with not enough sleep. Grrrrr.
Top of 20 today and those beautiful clear skies again, which means we are very lucky as this time last week it was wet, wet, wet with very strong winds. We are sharing the hotel with a bus load of ‘Band of Brothers’ so I’m sssuming they are all ex US vets, but maybe some still serving? Anyway, breakfast was a very noisy affair and not as good as other. Ensues, but I was okay as they had toasting bread, a toaster and I had my Vegemite!
We head off towards Omaha Beach where our local guide Ann provides us with so much info about D day and the actual landing. As she is the great grand daughter of a local farmer, whowe stories make it all much more real. we arrive at Omaha Beach and thankfully our timing is good as there are very few others around. I’m not one for American history, but those Rangers had one heck of a job scaling the cliff face to attack the German stronghold. Reminds me a bit of our marvellous ANZACS at Gallipoli however the Turks were ready and waiting for them, whereas D Day was a brilliantly planned assault that initially caught the Germans unawares. It was only the shocking weather on the day that made the assault so much more dreadful. I won’t start an international incident, but I do recall that the Yanks came late to the party, and then took much of the credit! However, there are quite a few museums along our way commemorating D Day so it really is quite a business for locals. I gather lots of Vets visit here so I would assume that the museums would be fairly accurate in their representations.

Ann is doing a great job of explaining everything we see. The weather really is perfect, so absolutely nothing like the Rangers experienced on 6 June 1944. We are then back on the coach to St Laurent sur Mer so that we can actually walk along the beach, which is sand rather than the rocks and pebbles of Nice and most other European beaches we’ve seen. The memorial is quite spectacular but I’m not sure what it is meant to represent.
Omaha Beach was taken by the American Rangers. Further along the coastline the beaches were given different code names like Juno and Gold and others I can’t quickly remember. It is these other beaches that were taken by the Allies, particularly, GB, Canada and Denmark. The Aussies were involved to some degree, but were by this late stage of the war, also busy defending our own country after Darwin was bombed. It really was very interesting, but you will have to look it up yourselves to get the full account.

Back on the coach again and this time to the nearby American Military Cemetry. It’s a big place and well planned and set out. However one thing I noted was that on the headstones which were etched into each white cross there was no mention of the age of the person, just their name, rank, where they were from and the date they died. There are only 4 women buried here. One was a ‘donut dolly’ who made cups of tea and gave biscuits to the service men and the other three were postal service assistants helping with letters home from the men. At about 11.45 the American national anthem was played (we stopped and stood in silence while it was played and also respected a minute silence after. Not so Henry who I could hear blabbering on to some unsuspecting sound. But if he chose not to respect his own national anthem, I wasn’t going to challenge him on it. Then about 15 minutes later a single trumpeter played Taps. As we are in a much larger group with the second tour, it is much easier to avoid AH and that is what I’m generally successfully able to do so far...
There is a wall with all the names of those who lost their life along these beaches which is lovely. The only thing I thought odd at a major memorial site where they played the anthem from, was the statue of what is meant to be a young male rising up out of a wave. He is only wearing some sort of loin cloth. I would have expected a larger than life US Marine or Ranger or some sort of military uniform to be worn, however this is something else my opinion wasn’t sought on. the symbolism was lost on me.

Time to board the coach and we head to Arromanches-les-Bains. We don’t have a lot of time here, so quickly go and grab a panini from a little cafe. We join Dan and Vicki to share a table. And ofcourse we have a glass of white wine during our hurried lunch.The ‘Band of Brothers’ busload are also in the town and it is very busy with other tourists as well as it is a long weekend here. As we leave the cafe I saw that there were two WWII Vets (who would have been in their 90s) wearing their berets and all their medals on their blazers, seated at a nearby table, so I approached them, shook their hands and thanked them for their service. They were chuffed so this made me feel good too.
I’d never heard of this place before but was thoroughly taken by the story of how Winston Churchill decided that the beaches needed to be secured so troops and equipment had to get to those areas but they weren’t deep sea ports and had no suitable landing/staging area and the best way for that to happen was to build a bridge between the ships and land.Lord Mountbatten said that if there isn’t a bridge for the ships to unload all the vehicles, etc onto land then they’d have to make one in pieces and take it there and that’s exactly what those clever Brits did. (I’m paraphrasing or bastardising here so don’t quote me exactly on this if ever you get asked a question about it on a quiz show.) But it truly was brilliant.

If I have remembered correctly it was General Patton in charge of this mission. He’d slapped some poor private and therefore been snubbed by military hierarchy to be in the front of battle plans so instead was to be in charge of the ‘pretend’ troops at Arromanches-les-Bains. The Germans were not able to trust intell they were receiving so Patton got away with the secret planning for D day. To create as safe a harbour as possible they sank 17 ships in different formation to create a breakwater that would allow three different entry points. The ships were specifically sailed to each designated spot and then scuttled. Other ships brought the pieces of the ‘bridge’ and commenced placing them together, much like a meccano set. The museum tour we did after lunch showed the process in simple but brilliant displays. Remains of some of the bridge and sunken ships are still visible from the coastline.

A fabulous miniature display is in the museum, plus there is a short video of photos taken at the time depicting how it all came into being. Back on the coach and as we leave this lovely little fishing village that really was untouched by the ravages of WWII, we are able stop at a lookout to see actual pieces of the bridge and a lovely view of the coastline.

More photos and story to follow dear armchair travellers, but the coach internet keeps dropping out and I think other travellers are becoming concerned by my increasing mutterings under my breath!

You may now need to read back through a piece earlier, as I’ve now added some info on Patton if you didn’t see him mentioned on a first read.
We have then gone back to our hotel for a short break before we are about to head out again for the evening. But what the heck is that noise? It’s the bloody fire alarm in the hotel. I go to reception to ask if it is genuine, and am ignored by staff who are busy giving rolls of toilet paper to Sylvia. Ad the alarm is still going, J and I decide to gather up a couple of things and head outside. Eventually the alarm stops and we go back to our room. Not st all happy with staff and their poor management of the situation. We had to rely on other travellers telling us it was a false alarm.
However, onward and upward. Out to our next visit, which is to an apple orchard that produces its own cider and Calvados. We are shown through the very old farm by Thomas, the owner, and into the mill, plus a wander to one of the orchards. Then it is time for cider tasting where we started with apple juice, then worked our way up through the various cider strengths til we got to the apple brandy. Can’t say I particularly liked any of them much.

Back on the coach for our final destination, where we go to a great restaurant right on the sea front for dinner. I had chicken ceaser salad entree, cod for main and panacotta with raspberry coullis for dessert.

We sat with a couple from Boston Mass, who were travelling with his daughter and her grand daughter (both girls were late teens, early twenties). For those of you who know me well enough I had them in howls of laughter over a variety of topics. J was laughing so hard she was crying and having to keep wiping tears from her eyes. They thought Aussies are hilarious and great fun. So we did our country proud. Finally time to leave (yes... we drank wine with dinner) and were presented with a gorgeous sunset as we boarded our bus. The sun isn’t setting here until after 9 but this is the first time I’ve been by the beach to capture how lovely it is.

So, back to our hotel and straight to bed as we are up and out again early tomorrow.