23/7 - D Day Beaches
There was a hotel near the station which had an unbelievable offer - €21 for a single. Consider that my hostel cost €19 per bed per night, and €20 without membership.
Traveling to the beaches on a public bus would've cost me €30 already, and there were only 4 buses on Sunday, so I'd see much more with the tour.
There was really nice weather in the morning. It was even, for the first time in July, a little bit cold.
I had a pain aux chocolat and a pain aux raisins for breakfast. The hostel had breakfast provided, but it started at 8 and I was supposed to be at the pickup point for my D Day tour at 8.
The female guide said there had been a heatwave for the past 3 weeks. So it wasn't just me, and it wasn't usually that bad in July!
I should probably get down to watching Saving Private Ryan some time.
I opted for the US/British tour. There was a US/Canadian tour, but only Canadians could possibly be interested in that, and the full-day US tour was for ignorant Americans who didn't know or care about other countries' contributions (hurr hurr).
The first stop was the German cemetery at La Cambe.
German cemetery - Crosses
Tumulus
If I'd taken the public bus, I wouldn't have been able to visit the German Cemetery.
There were more than 21,222 graces in the German Cemetery - the largest burial in the smallest plot of land. Kinda expected.
"The Germans always like this part of France and they try to take it" - Guide on Alsace-Lorraine
More crosses
I like the cross on the ceiling. I think this was the chapel.
Memorial wall
They maintain and extend the German Cemetery with international youth camps. The knowledge that school labour can be exploited seems to be universal.
La Pointe Du Hoc. The only place in Normandy which still has bomb craters, since the owner didn't fill them up (I think he wanted it as a memorial to the war)
1944 pillbox. The later pillboxes were more shoddy and less sturdy since they were hastily thrown up, and thus more vulnerable to enemy fire; this was built out of concrete blocks instead of being 1 big piece of concrete like its older brethren.
Crater-ed land. Utah sector is in the background.
They had a fake gun emplacement here with fake guns while they waited for the pillboxes to be completed, whereupon they brought the real guns back in.
Emplacement
2 bomb craters. These were the deepest I could find.
Bunker
Another crater
We were told that at Benouville, the first place liberated from the Germans (as opposed to the first town - Sainte-Mère-Église or the first city - Bayeux), there were French plaques saying it was liberated at 11pm French time and midnight British time. But then British time is 1 hour behind. Wth.
As we drove to the next destination we were shown Fortress-Farms, built during the 16th century wars of religion so people could barricade themselves inside. They had few openings to the outside and some gunholes.
When we reached Omaha beach, it was high tide. At low tide, there would be ground till the last buoy (600-700m out).
Omaha
Present sea wall - Germans had anti-tank wall
I think this means that the Germans had built an anti-tank wall equivalent to the current seawall.
Only 6/40 amphibious tanks reached the beach, and in the first few minutes half were destroyed, since the bombing of Omaha had failed. Pity. The engineers' clearing also failed since they had no tanks to protect them, and they had to destroy the obstacles they were using as shelter. The beach was not clean, and 25,000 men landed in the wrong place - conscripts for the US, and professionals for the Commonwealth.
Unfortunately it started raining when we were on Omaha and we ran back to the minibus; I was the only one with an umbrella. I wanted to take a picture of the view of the hills from the beach (Omaha was the only of the 5 beaches with hills the troops had to climb - the rest were flat), and of the sea from the beach. Ah well.
The beaches have French names besides the D Day names (the popular, tourist names), taking their names from the villages they're near.
The next stop was the US cemetery.
>70% of US bodies were repatriated to the US, but there're 2 US cemeteries in Normandy with 9387 bodies. Meanwhile there're 18 Commonwealth cemeteries.
The names on the graves face the West - the direction of the USA.
Peace statue. It's pretentiously called 'The spirit of American Youth rising from the waves'.
US cemetery
Pond
View of the beach the Germans would've had, as Allied soldiers came up the hill.
Crosses
Pond, memorial
Flagpole
Crosses
The chapel had Jewish tablets with the 10 Commandments. Wth.
Chapel
Chapel ceiling, interior. The mosaic is entitled 'America blessing her sons as they depart by sea and air to fight for freedom' and 'Grateful France bestowing a laurel wreath upon American Dead who gave their lives to liberate Europe's oppressed peoples'
Somehow I doubt that, in 60 years, we'll have 'Grateful Iraq bestowing a laurel wreath upon American Dead who gave their lives to liberate the Middle East's oppressed peoples'
Apparently even in Paris stuff closes on Sunday. The guide remarked that Sunday was a good day for a tour, since the law banned working on Sunday despite students wanting to work to get money for their studies (only tourist places and souvenir shops near them were allowed to open). And apparently the French in the north go to Belgium to shop.
We then returned to Bayeux for lunch. I didn't want to waste time (and risk missing the rest of the tour) and money, so I had a cheap lunch (not in a restaurant).
Tanners, Dyers district of Bayeux
Side stream cutting Allee des Tanneurs, behind Palais de Justice, Place de Quebec
After lunch the tour resumed, with the British leg.
This was the biggest of the 18 Commonwealth cemeteries, with 5000 bodies. The Commonwealth tradition was to bury the dead as close to where they fell as possible, which was why there were 300 Commonwealth soldiers in civilian cemeteries.
The Commonwealth cemetery was much more interesting than the German and American ones. The Commonwealth people like gardens, so there're flowers in Commonwealth cemeteries. In the spirit of the Commonwealth, non-Commonwealth can also be buried in Commonwealth cemeteries.
The tombstones are also interesting. Those from Canadian units had the Maple Leaf at the top of the tombstones. The rest had the crests of their divisions.
If non-Christians were buried in a grave but didn't say they didn't want a religious symbol, they'd get a cross. Egyptian soldiers got Egyptian crosses.
Grave of a freethinker
Epitaphs were also a peculiarity of the Commonwealth graves, as opposed to the German and American cemeteries. Non-Commonwealth gravestones had a different shape.
~500 Germans were buried in the Commonwealth cemetery, but their graves were grouped together. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Clustered graves
Where graves were clustered, this was an indication that the men had died together and they couldn't identify/sort the remains out. For example, people in a plane or tank that got blown up.
Variety of gravestones
In the front row we see 2 Russian and 2 Czech graves.
There're crosses with swords on them in all Commonwealth cemeteries. Even the one with only 47 people.
More graves
Chapel
Memorial to MIA soldiers
English humour - “NOS A GULIELMO VICTI VICTORIS PATRIAM LIBERAVIMUS” (“We, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror's native land”)
The guide described this as English humour and said most people didn't get it. She said the first time she didn't find it funny, but later she did. So maybe the way to get the French to have a sense of humour is to have them be tour guides.
A temperature sign said it was 23 degrees celsius. Yay.
There were poppies in the British cemetery. How appropriate, given that they are painkillers. We should grow them here too. Oh, but that would be encouraging drug addiction, which is a Bad Thing (TM).