Stories from Normandy

We were off with a small group of friends today with a fun and knowledgeable guide, Mike, who informed and entertained us with stories from World War 2 and the D-Day landings at Normandy.  I'll do my best to share some of those stories with you in this post.

Our first stop was the town of Sainte-Mere-Église where a flight of the 82nd Airborne paratroopers inadvertently landed when their aircraft were drawn to this spot due to a house fire that was blazing on the outskirts of town.

One of the soldiers, John Steel, really did have his parachute get caught on the church spire.  The dummy paratrooper here is actually hanging from the opposite side from where Steel landed.  Having no way to get down without a life-threatening fall he decided to just hang there and play dead, hoping the Germans wouldn't start shooting at him.  Another paratrooper, Ken Russell, landed on the lower northern gable of the church, cut himself free and fled to safety.   

I liked the sentiment on this sign inside the church which reads, "Welcome Visitors, become pilgrims of PEACE."

The stained glass in this 13th century church has been replaced since WW2.  It is absolutely beautiful and a loving tribute to the paratroopers who were the first to arrive in France for the invasion..  This window was presented to the church in 1949 on the anniversary of the liberation.

The windows tell a story, just as those of any medieval church.  This one has paratroopers and the church itself in the design.

The interior of the church is relatively simple except for the stained glass.  It is still an operating church today.

My favorite window was this one after Mike pointed out some details on it that I had just glanced over.  A lot of thought went into creating it.

At the top is this parachute, but also below it are a representation of the wings that a paratrooper earns once he's passed training.  Also, notice all the parachutes that are in the golden and white glass.

If you look in the dark border that surrounds the figure you can see faces of the soldiers in  the small pieces of glass.

There are village homes in the border, as well as the date of the landing, plus the Normandy lion.  The figure in the stained glass is St. Michael, patron saint of paratroopers.

One other window in the church is more traditional.

Of the 16 paratroopers who landed on this square, only four of them survived.  When their comrades in arms joined up with them here later it was ironic that an American with German ancestry named Krause was the first to raise an American flag in France on D-Day.

When the paratroopers began to fall from the skies many of the townspeople were engaged in a bucket brigade at this pump, trying to put out the house fire at Mademoiselle Pommier's while the Germans watched over them since they were out after curfew.  When the shooting starting the citizens scattered and the house burned to the ground.

Also on the square is this stone post, a leftover from Roman times.  You would find these milestones at set intervals along the road.  Now you know where the term "milestone" came from!

Sainte-Mere-Église was a place I had looked forward to visiting and it did not disappoint.

One other monument here was to honor the French Resistance Fighters.  Notice how the gravel here is red, that is to represent the blood that was shed by the soldiers and fighters.

Also on one side of the square is a statue of General Dwight Eisenhower, who ordered the D-Day invasion.  One more statue honors General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., whose troops came ashore at Utah Beach.  

This photo should give you an idea of what the troops faced once they actually got ashore and started moving inland.  Many of the roads looked like this one with tall hedgerows on the sides and/or overhanging trees.  What we think of as a hedge is nothing like what the tanks and soldiers had to get through.  The hedgerows were tall combinations of trees, brush and brambles that were next to impossible to get through at first.  Plus they never knew what might be waiting around a bend or on the other side of the hedgerow.

All around Normandy there are roads named for soldiers who fought here in June of 1944.

Just a reminder here of what the plan was for Operation Overlord, the code name for the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944.  In order for this plan to work the tides had to be low at dawn to give the troops the maximum daylight for creating their beachheads.  June 5 had been chosen as the day to execute the plans but the weather was so horrible that they couldn't start.  The meteorologists predicted there would be a break in the weather on the 6th and not wanting to delay any longer Eisenhower gave the go ahead.  Conditions were still windy and stormy, with lots of cloud cover, which led to plans having to change on the fly, or go to option B, C, or D.  While the paratroopers were supposed to have come in to attack from the rear, the Army's 4th Division was to come ashore at Utah Beach while the 1st Division attacked at Omaha.  At the same time the British would land at Gold and Sword Beaches while the Canadians came ashore at Juno.   Unfortunately we only had time to visit Utah and Omaha.

This spot, called Causeway #3, looks out onto Utah Beach where the troops were supposed to land, however they ended up much further to the east at Causeway #2.

Beneath the overgrown shrubbery here is a German bunker, one that was for troop accommodations.  There were 15,000 German bunker installations along the coast from Norway to Spain.  The problem is, once you get past a bunker it's of no use anymore as the Germans would learn.

The land leading away from the beach is flat but would have have had standing water in it.  The Germans would flood the land closest to the beaches to add an extra layer of protection.

A signpost reminder that it was from this point that the American armies gained their foothold in France on June 6, 1944.

A German bunker was built behind a fisherman's house here.  Eventually the owner was kicked out 

Along the beaches were these large metal objects called Czech Hedgehogs.  Depending on the tide they would by lying on the beach or submerged.  Often they had mines attached to them.  There were hundreds of these along the shoreline.  More on them later.

To get the men ashore they used Higgins Boats, this is just as replica as the actual boats were made of plywood.  They had been developed in New Orleans in 1941 by a fellow named Andrew Jackson Higgins.  

The American version of the boat was called an American Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP.  It could carry 36 troops, travel at a speed of up to 12 knots and could be equipped with a pair of machine guns.  It needed a crew of four personnel.  20 of these came ashore at Utah Beach at 6:30 a.m. on June 6.

Besides the replicas of the boats there is a monument here to Higgins himself, reminding those who visit that his invention was not only used in Normandy but successfully operated in all the theaters of war in WW2, including the Pacific and North Africa.

There is also a monument called "The Lone Sailor in Normandy" which honors all the American sailors and their allies who played an integral role in getting the soldiers to the shore.  It may surprise you to learn that there were even ships from the Danish navy, ships which had escaped capture when the Germans invaded Denmark, participated.  There were a total of 14 different nationalities who were involved with the D-Day invasion.

Since we're all from Utah we thought it would be a good idea for Karl and I, plus Laura and Bob to take a photo at Utah Beach together.

Here are the sands to the east and west where the troops actually came ashore.  When we were there it was high tide so there wasn't a wide strip of sand.

If you look closely at the photo on the left you'll see a yellow buoy that marks there the sea would have been on the morning of June 6.  The photo on the right is looking in the same direction as the buoy but I couldn't spot it in the picture.  It would have been 600 yards out from where the tides currently were, giving the soldiers a lot more room to maneuver.

Today it's a peaceful place where jockeys ride in buggies to train their thoroughbred trotting horses.  We saw several coming off the beach as we visited.  In the distance here is Pointe du Hoc, where we would stop shortly.

When General Roosevelt realized they had landed off target at Causeway #2 but were having success and making progress, he just had the men keep coming here rather than reverting to Plan A.  The Americans were through the German lines at Utah beach in just 45 minutes with only 197 casualties, meaning wounded, dead, or captured.

There is no way that you can drive along this part of the coast of Normandy without reminders of the war and especially of the D-Day invasion.  It is sobering to think about all those young men who came ashore, especially when we got to Omaha Beach.

Remember those Czech Hedgehogs?  They were there to try to tear up any kind of transport coming ashore, including the Sherman tanks the Americans brought with them.  The first group of tanks to come ashore was a disaster, all but two of them sank before reaching land, but eventually they figured out they had to get the tanks closer in, shallower water, and on they came.  The Americans hoped to tear through the hedgerows with these tanks but found the hedgerows to be almost impenetrable. Finally someone had the brilliant idea to take the hedgehogs apart and weld the bars to the front of the tanks so that they could tear into the roots of the hedgerows, excellent recycling.  What had once seemed impossible was now a simple task.

The gun near these flags at Utah Beach is at one of the original gun emplacements.  You can see how the Germans had the higher ground, but it didn't help them here.

In the small town of Angoville au Plain there is monument to two medics from the 101st Airborne.  This story was one of my favorites of the day.

When the 101st landed they were scattered as well and being shot at as they floated down into this spot that was at the edge of their drop zone.  A young medic named Bob Wright, who was in his first battle, quickly found that he needed somewhere to do his job of taking care of the wounded.  The most stable spot he could was the old church, so he hung a Red Cross flag on the  gate and began to carry injured, one by one, into this small church.  Another medic, Kenneth Moore, eventually joined him in the task.  The incredible thing to me about this story is that these young men were only 19 and 20 years old, taking their job seriously and using their initiative to care for patients.  

They had two men who were wounded so badly that they knew there wasn't much they could do for them so they took them to the front of the church, behind the altar and kept them comfortable until they died.  

Those who were wounded ended up sitting and lying on all the wooden benches of the church while being cared for, if you looked closely you could still see blood stains.  Later on there was a loud bang at the door in the back and when it was opened there stood a German commander.  When he saw what was going on there he asked Bob and Ken if he could bring his wounded in for them to care for.  They willingly agreed, as long as no one brought weapons with them, and eventually they were caring for 80 men, 78 of whom survived.  When the town was liberated the German injured were taken prisoner.

A window was added here in 2004 to commemorate their service.  

At one point a bomb or grenade came through the ceiling, sending down plaster and dust, and cracking the stone floor below.  The only person injured in that attack was Bob, who received some minor cuts.

These two men were definitely examples of this scripture on this stained glass window.  One of the special things about this 12th century church dedicated to St. Cosmos and St. Damian, is that these two saints are known for having come down from the heavens and treated anyone who needed their help.  Sounds a lot like Bob and Ken to me.

Inside the church is a small memorial to Bob and Ken who were beloved of the people of the village.  You can see how young they look in their photos.

Bob loved his memories of this time of service in the village so much that when he died he requested that part of his ashes be buried here in Angoville.

Here are examples of more hedgerows, these dividers still mark field boundaries.

Our next stop was at Pointe du Hoc where the Army Rangers came ashore with the task of taking out the gun emplacements marked by red circles on the above map.  This spot is located between Utah and Omaha Beaches.

These were the size of guns that were supposed to be at Pointe du Hoc.  From their positions they had a range of 12 miles which covered both the Utah and Omaha landing sites.  It was of utmost importance that these  emplacements be removed.  

The Rangers had been trained in mountaineering which made them good for scaling the rocky bluff that the guns sat on.  They had grappling hooks with ropes attached that were shot towards the cliff with rockets.  That plan didn't work out too well as the ropes got wet and were so heavy the rockets couldn't carry the hooks high enough.  Luckily for the Rangers they found a stone stairway they could climb to the top.  Things at this location quickly became difficult for more reasons than the wet ropes.  Two groups of 125 were supposed to attack from each side of the point, but they ended up with everyone on just one side.  They started their attack 40 minutes late and couldn't send any messages because their radios were wet.

When they got to the top and got dug in, they realized that their aerial reconnaissance had been mistaken, the guns weren't there, just telephone poles disguised to look like the guns.  Knowing the danger of the missing guns, and that they had to be around somewhere, patrols were sent out to locate them.  By 9:00 a.m. the guns were found hidden in a nearby orchard, and were then destroyed with thermite grenades which melted their barrels.

Bombs continued to drop around them, notice the depression in earth, but when they got the radios working and asked for reinforcements they were told to hold on because things weren't going well at Omaha Beach.  They hung on for two long days, outnumbered at times 7 to 1, keeping a large number of Germans occupied and away from the battles at Omaha.

One of the German concrete structures at Pointe du Hoc.

This one would have been living quarters with 

a walkway that was below ground that led to what would have been a gun emplacement.  

Thie view on the left looks toward Utah Beach, we could see its strip of sand off to our left.  Omaha Beach was still out of sight to the right.  This monument at Pointe du Hoc is dedicated to the Rangers who held strong here,  with only 90 of them left when reinforcements finally arrived.

You can see how steep the climb would have been up the ropes as well as the rocky shore below.  It would have been rocky like that for quite a ways out at low tide.  The edges of the cliffs would have been another 10 feet out in 1949, there has been that much erosion since then.

At the bottom of the point is this sharp rock, although it probably looked different in 1949.

When I went into this German rifle battery

I couldn't help but wonder as I climbed down the stairs and entered the confined spaces

how frightening it must have been for the Germans soldiers stationed along the coast as they watched hundreds of boats and thousands of troops come ashore.  Their defenses were in a state of disarray because no one was willing to wake up Hitler to get instructions on how to respond to the attack.

Pointe du Hoc was another fascinating place to visit.

t was finally time to check out

Omaha Beach, a five mile stretch of sand that was the largest landing area, as well as the bloodiest, on D-Day.

It was supposed to take an hour to create a beachhead here but instead it became a slaughtering ground where men were slowly crawling up the beach under cover of the smoke and flying sand.  After two hours of struggle, the commander of the USS Franklin disobeyed orders, coming close, within 700 yards of the shore, to make a broadside bombardment, aiming their guns at the areas the tanks onshore were shooting at.  Eventually John Spaulding and his men found  a hollow in the beach not far from this site that allowed them to get between the German defenses and to get off the beach to the east.

Meanwhile, Norman Cota and his troops broke through to the west. 

There wre 34,000 troops that landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and of those, 4,500 were casualties.  10% was considered an acceptable loss so the number here was significantly above that.  I tried to just be quiet as I stood there on the beach and try to picture what it must have been like for those men.  I'm sure I couldn't even get close to the trauma and terror it must have been.  They were some of the most courageous men of the war.

This sculpture is the Omaha Beach Memorial.

Nearby was this memorial to the Second Infantry Division and it was touching to see the photos and objects left here.

Our quick final stop was at the American Cemetery.  We didn't have nearly enough time left before we needed to head back to Cherbourg to wander here.  It is a beautiful and peaceful place. There are currently 9,388 graves here, almost 300 of them are sites where the remains are still unidentified.  All of the graves face the west, towards home.

While these men and four women never made it home, their sacrifice is one worthy of remembering, that there are things worth fighting for.  The last lines below are engraved along the top of the memorial in this photo.

"This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor, and the sacrifices of our fellow countrymen."  Thank you all for giving your all..