We began the day with about 3 hours in the Caen Memorial (sculpture of the gun with the muzzle knotted is here (blurry picture-sorry.) It includes from the end of WWI to the present with a concentration on the German aggression in both wars. But we saw a movie about wars, protests and the hope of peace. Th part about war had way too much US involvement, including Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam (& protests), both Golf Wars, etc. Then after a homemade lunch of French baguette & cheese plus yogurt (we’re so very French), we went on the guided tour of the beaches and cemeteries. We saw where the British landed, Omaha beach, German pill boxes, bomb craters, American and German cemeteries. It was a very sobering day. I’ve included some pictures.
Blow up the Omaha beach picture. There are some people in the foreground. Look near the water. There are people there too. I took this picture to show how hard it must have been for the people to come off the boats and run the distance of this huge beach before reaching any kind of cover from the guns built into the hills (called German pill boxes shown in another picture.) It’s truly a good thing that Jan didn’t have to go to war, because she would have been hard pressed to do any of this.
There is also a picture of the beach with a cliff in the background. This is straight up, probably about 6 or 7 stories, that, after they ran the across the beach (narrower at this point), all wet, they had to climb up this cliff in less than 30 minutes. Doesn’t sound like fun either. In the foreground of this picture is what looks like reverse hilly terrain. This is one location that the French maintain, but didn’t “fix”. The holes in the ground are the bomb craters made by the bombardment from the Allied ships landing. It was pretty amazing to see the damage that was done, yet there were enough enemy to kill so many boys and men.
Which takes us to our last two pictures. We visited the British Cemetery in Bayeux earlier. We visited the American and German cemeteries during this tour. The American one (9,500 bodies) has one marble marker (cross or star of David) for each killed soldier. We asked why there was such a Jewish presence in the chaple when there were only 149 star markers. The answer was that Jews didn’t feel comfortable putting Jewish on their dog tags because of the consequences if they were caught by Germans. So it is assumed that many more were Jewish and chose not to put anything on their dog tags (defaulting to a cross for a marker.) The German cemetery (21,000 bodies) didn’t have enough room, so it has one marker (squares in the ground) for each two killed soldiers. Their names are on the markers. All three cemeteries were impeccably kept and very moving.
To get to the beaches, we drove through country, farms and small villages. As far as I can tell, every village has a beautiful old church with a tall spire or bell tower. I didn’t get a picture of these, but included one of 16 in Caen, that we walk by almost daily. Back to the country…the farms are old, stone farm houses with stone walls attached to the side of the house closest to the road, enclosing a courtyard or play yard. Very charming. They also divide their land from the next farm by either dense trees or perfectly trimmed hedges, or dirt (with grass and brush growing on it) mounded about 6 feet high.
Life is still very good. We would love to hear from you, and can host you to a “local” visit if you can come.
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