Thursday, June 12 - Normandy

What could have been a disappointing day turned out to be very wonderful & moving.  The past few days have seen work stoppages on the trains all over Paris and – surprise!! – our train to Bayeux was cancelled.  This train would have gotten us to Bayeux at 12:15 and we would have had a bite to eat before our 1:30 tour.  But alas, now we would not reach Bayeux until 2:20.  We decided to push forward, figuring we might be able to hook up with a local tour and, if not, just enjoy the day in a small French village.

I was able to get my money’s worth out of the phone I had to purchase for the trip.  I phoned the designated tour contact – Guy (pronounced “Gee” with a hard “G”) , explained the situation and he said he’d see what he could do.

What he could – and did – do was phone the 5 other individuals on our particular tour (a couple & a couple w/daughter) and asked if they would mind starting the tour an hour later.  All said “no problem”.  I didn’t know this was going on.  All I knew was when I got off the train at Bayeux, Guy was holding up a sign that said “YOUNG” and the tour started. 

Now that’s first class service.

The tour itself was eye-opening.  I knew about D-Day & the Normandy invasion.  But Guy was so knowledgeable and filled in so many gaps of my information that I didn’t even know existed:  the details of the planning and execution of the invasion were fleshed out and came alive, how good plans went bad.  He noted that “Saving Private Ryan” was an excellent depiction of the chaos that went on during the first moments of the invasion.  But the way it was depicted, made it seem as though the invasion took place on a small beach.  Rather, it took place over 5 miles of beach – the same amount of total chaos, but over 5 miles.  It was hard to imagine.  And when I was able to imagine, it gave me chills. 

Along the way, he pointed out where the Allied forces made mistakes, how the Germans were prepared, how troops wound up at the wrong place, the difference between the various holes in the ground (some from bombs dropped, some from cannon fired).  We went to the cemetery first because it closed at 6 and if we kept it for last, as the tour usually did, there was a chance we would miss it.  So Guy rearranged the order of the tour as well as the time for us and took us to the cemetery first.  Then we went to 3 spots on Omaha beach as he explained what happened at each spot.  It was very impacting and truly brought history to life.

I took just a few photos, preferring to just soak it all in regularly instead of through a camera lens:

This is a sculpture called "To the Brave" placed on Omaha Beach.  That's Gene to the right to show you the perspective of how large it is.

This is just a small section of the cemetery.  Great care was taken to see that not only are the crosses and Stars of David aligned perfectly, they also follow the natural curve of the land in perfect alignment and are set in the ground in such a way that you'll never have 1 marker tilt out of alignment.

This is a close-up of one of the stones.  At the base, on the back side is the soldier's dog tag number if he has been identified.

This is just one small section of the beach.  Multiply this by about 5.  If you've seen "Saving Private Ryan" you can then get an idea of how enormous the chaos and violence was.

While recognizing that this day was solemn and the monuments & cemetery were dignified, I have to say this is the worst design for a memorial to Commando Rangers that I have ever seen.  Ronald Regan was President when this was erected and came and made a speech in front of it.

 

By the way, the train station in Paris has a piano with a sign saying anyone could sit down and play.  And it was a Yamaha piano.  So I practiced a bit of my improv and had some fun.  I love being able to sit down play something musical without have to have music in front of me.