Day 7/8 – Normandy

After lunch on Sunday, we had time to do one activity in Normandy before dinner, so we decided to go to the Airborne museum which was a tribute to the paratroopers that landed on D-Day.  This was a very engaging museum that was technologically advanced as well.  Each visitor received a tablet to supplement the physical museum.  It showed landscapes from 1944 and now, plus it had technical specs on all the equipment used and had interactive videos and stories depending on where you were located in the museum.  The kids especially liked searching for “relics” and were upset when they realized that there was a countdown timer, saying that we only have 2hrs left in the museum – not something we are used to hearing in a history museum…

After the museum, we drove to the Hotel Bayeux in Bayeux.  We unpacked and found a kid friendly restaurant in the middle of town.  Not the best selection for Nate with his Gluten allergy, but the kids loved it and we re-hydrated from a hot day at the museum and travel.

The next day we started our D-Day tour.  We went to 6 historical sites and drove by many more.  The first stop on the trip was the American Cemetery and memorial overlooking Omaha beach.  Over 9,000 Americans are buried there including Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who received the Medal of Honor for his actions on Utah beach and Robert and Preston Niland, who were two of four bothers who died and was the family that was the basis of the movie “Saving Private Ryan”.  Overall, very sad to see the unnecessary loss of human life – but they died to prevent tyranny and for the cause of freedom.

The second stop on our tour was at Omaha beach itself.  We saw many of the German casements and concrete fortification that formed part of the “Atlantic Wall” that the Germans constructed for the defense of Europe.  After hearing the story, the kids decided to storm the beach and hide behind the seawall like the soldiers on D-Day.  Charlie actually did not participate in the attack, but spent his time digging in the sand.

The third stop on the tour was at Point du Hoc.  This was the German anti-naval gun battery emplacement with five 155 mm cannons.  There is a fantastic story about the Rangers climbing the cliffs, to find only decoy guns because the Germans were in the process of improving fortifications.  The Rangers searched the area and found the real guns about a mile away in the hedgerows and destroyed them while the Germans were out partying in a nearby town.  They didn’t expect the invasion on June 6th due to very poor weather. This is a great site to go into the fortifications and see giant bomb craters.

The fourth stop on the tour was lunch at the village of Saint Mar

e Eglise (where the Airborne Musuem is located).  We got a chance to eat paninis and hamburgers under the shade of the trees in the town square.  Then we walked through town and saw evidence of the battle that occurred there, like bullet holes in a wall and a metal fence with dings in the posts.  We then drove though the country on highway 3, which had military strategic significance and saw the hedge rows that were difficult for the Allied forces to pass.

The fifth stop on the tour was Utah beach. This is where Theodore Roosevelt Jr. landed, slightly East of where he was supposed to land.  Luckily this was less heavily guarded and he was able to break through the defenses and attack the stronghold from the rear.  It also had a very nice Sherman Tank and some camouflaged fortifications.  The beach had many war buffs and beach goers, sort of an odd mix of people at the beach.

The Sixth and final stop was at a church in the city of Angoville au Plain.  This church was located in Drop Zone D, which ended being one of the deadliest locations for the US Paratroopers. The church was converted into a makeshift medical hospital by two American soldiers, which treated US soldiers, civilians and German soldiers.  A bomb dropped into the church during the action, but did not explode.  To this day there is are very strong ties between the church and the soldiers that were taken there.

On the drive back we drove by the German cemetery and British cemetery.  We also got to learn about out tour guides family involvement in the war (war prisoner from the Maginot Line) and other stories from the war.  Later we went to dinner, explored Bayeux and saw the church and tree covered in light at dusk.

We had a fun time with the Caucutt’s. We head to Paris on our own in the morning