This was the day for visiting the D day sites and museums. Or at least a selection of them as there are very many and it would take a long time to see them all. Each has its own collection of stories of heroism and tragedy, and one can't fail to be moved by them.
How to chose where to go? Well I don't really know, so we went by recommendation and fitted in as much as we could.
First visit was to the US Army Ranger memorial at Pointe du Hoc. This is where men scaled 60m cliffs under fire to silence an enemy battery. The site still features shell craters and gun emplacements from the invasion.
One of the most well known sites is of course the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer (near Omaha beach) with its 9,387 dead and remembrance wall of 1,557 missing but never found. We happened on a free guided tour in English that lasted over an hour and was most helpful in understanding the cemetery, its history and status, and a number of the personal stories that go with it.
Two of the Niland brothers are buried here. They were a set of 4 brothers serving in the US armed forces. Two were killed close to D day and one was missing presumed dead in Burma (he was later found to have been a PoW for several years and returned home.) The 4th brother was sent home to the US away from the combat to avoid the possibility of losing all 4. The movie 'Saving Private Ryan' is loosely based on this story and some scenes from the movie were shot at the cemetery.
Tomorrow, May 8, is a holiday here to celebrate VE (Victory in Europe) day. A TV crew was filming in the cemetery for the occasion and followed our guided tour. They were desperate for someone to interview and J obliged, after some persuasion. So if you can get channel 'France 2', be watching at 8pm France time!
We also saw the massive German coastal battery of 150mm guns at Longues-sur-Mer and the remains of the remarkable Mulberry harbour at Arromanches, as well as the local museum showing how the harbour was constructed. Parts of the harbour are still there today.
(The Mulberry harbour was an arrangement of prefabricated breakwaters and jetties built in England (secretly) and towed to Arromanches to form a harbour for supplying the invasion forces.)
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