We left London early on Sunday morning, and were at Charles De Gaulle within an hour. It took a while to get our van, but then we were off, avoiding Paris (having been told that driving there is almost suicidal) and heading down the A-13 toward Rouen, which ended up being our first stop. Famous for the fiery death of Joan of Arc in 1431, the cathedrals in the old town section of the city stood for centuries before even that distant event, and were themselves made famous in part by Monet, who painted them in his unforgettable style. We spent some of our first steps in France wandering in and around them on a very quiet Sunday afternoon. They were spectacular, as was the section of old town Rouen in which we found them. Here are some of the photos.
We headed inside the Cathedral painted by Monet. It is a remarkable work of art in its own right. The doorway detail was incredible.
Such a big place, dedicated to such a worthy cause, but so empty. Perhaps on some days it will be fuller, at least that would be my hope. But on this day, it was pretty much all ours, to wander about, and contemplate both the message that helped build it, and all that had gone wrong in the time since that perhaps lays at the root of its emptiness. It can be so hard to have faith in God when he has to act through men, who inevitably do the human things they do. In todays age, where one error is absolutely disqualifying (making you "cancellable"), and relativism is the rule, I wonder if any belief will survive, even one as beautiful and worthy as Christ put forth all those centuries ago. I have my own hard earned faith in the divine to sustain me through all of that, but I do worry for our youth, who seem inclined to walk away, rather than give space for belief to sprout into the action that is needed to grow faith. It would be such a shame for a place like this to become a museum instead of a community, guided by Christ, full of forgiveness and love, the most prized things that life can possibly offer. I hope for their sakes they give it the chance it needs, and that they can do better at it than we have.
After wandering about the cathedrals and their environs, we stopped for a late lunch at a little cafe outside, and had authentic Croque Monsieurs, which were very tasty.
Following that, we headed out to wander about the historic streets in the old town for a time.
It was all very quiet, and mostly closed, on this Sunday afternoon, but beautiful nonetheless. We said a last good bye to Rouen and its cathedrals, packed up and headed for Bayeux, which would serve as our home base for the next few days. We had hoped to stay in a house that we found on VRBO, but were bitterly disappointed. It was dirty and musty, and the smell was so harsh that Kathleen literally could not stay in it. All I can say about it is don't ever consider booking from Thomas Meriaux for a house in Bayeux, with VRBO property ID 1766105. You will be bitterly disappointed and he will refuse any sort of refund. Luckily, we were able to immediately book a room in the lovely, moderately priced and highly recommended Hotel Le Bayeux. It is centrally located, with friendly, helpful staff who rescued our bacon. Plus it is pretty cute.
The first thing you notice in Bayeux is also its beautiful little cathedral, in the heart of town.
The drain spouts were very cool!
The town itself is very quaint, with picturesque scenes like the one below in abundance.
Arriving late, we found a local restaurant that served delicious crepes. Talking to locals, it sounded like because of tides, it was going to be very hard to sneak in a trip to Mont San Michel the following day (a disappointment I still regret not testing a little), so we hit the hay to begin our exploration of the local area the following day.
We started at the Bayeux Tapestry, a giant embroidered cloth more than seventy meters long, telling the story of William the Conqueror. It was created in the 11th century, and still survives, making it a Unesco World Heritage item. The people of Bayeux have devoted a whole museum to it.
Of course they don't let you take pictures of the tapestry itself, so I can't show it here, but it is pretty cool. It is about 20 inches high and 70 yards long, and you walk around it with an audio tour that tells the story displayed on the tapestry as you walk around it. We actually all enjoyed it a lot. The museum also houses some artifacts from the era, as well as re-creations, to show what Norman conquerers may have looked like in the day.
That boat does not seem English channel worthy to me, but apparently that is how they got across.
It was very informative and we all enjoyed it. From there we went to the Museum of the Battle of Normandy(the picture that opens this post is from just outside it). The Museum sits right across the street from the British Cemetery, which is hallowed ground. It was a wonderful little museum, filled with dioramas and original weapons and equipment, each with their own story to tell.
Alden was in heaven. He new the name of every tank, the size of their guns, the thickness of their armor in front and on their sides, their battle characteristics, weaknesses and advantages. He ran about like a kid at Christmas, soaking in every detail, every plaque, every factoid on offer. It was really fun just to watch him, at least for me. His brother and sister would soak it in for a time, and then just were really good sports, humoring him without much complaint. I was really proud of both of them for that, but especially Keegs. He was a really supportive brother on this trip.
There were a lot of authentic U.S., British and German weapons and uniforms, or "kit" on display.
Alden even knew what the above vehicle was. I am a pretty avid history buff and could never have told you that.
After many hours in the museum, we headed to the train station and picked up Urun, who had come from Orleans to spend a couple of days with us. It was so fun to see her again! We picked up some exquisite baguette sandwiches and a local bakery, and headed to the park to eat lunch and catch up.
Urun picked the park, it had this really crazy tree with some of the longest branches we have ever seen. From there, we headed off to the D-Day Experience museum, near Carentan.
It is dedicated to the paratroopers that landed behind the beaches on D-Day, and I could not recommend it more highly. It has a ride-like experience inside a C-47 transport plane on hydraulic equipment that bounces you around as you are hit by flack, and which brings you in for a rough crash landing. It felt pretty real! Kathleen said "sheesh, I feel like I am ready to storm something!" as we got off. Great way to appreciate a little glimpse of what they may have gone through. balance of the museum has artifacts like jackets, uniforms, helmets (with bullet holes in them), guns and other things, but for each artifact it tells you who it belonged to, and what their experience was on D-Day. It felt like history at its best, down on the individual level with real stories and experiences. Such a great little place. Here are some glimpses of how it is set up, and the type of things and stories it holds inside.
That is actually Ike's jacket, by the way. So cool!
Following the museum, we headed back into Bayeux for dinner, and a good night's sleep.
The following day, we had a full-day, privately guided tour, set up with Bayeux Shuttle. I was very excited about this part, because for me, besides seeing Mark Hunsaker again, it was the primary motivator for the whole trip.
We were very fortunate in our guide, Tom Sellen, a Welshman with a passion for this conflict. He was self-educated but so knowledgeable, and gave us all the information we could manage and more. We started at Utah Beach, far from Bayeux, and worked our way back. The picture above is from the entrance to that beach, where he stopped with his handy battlefield charts to give us the lay of the land. Among his interesting facts: The reason casualties were light on Utah Beach is that the German commander had decided to let the forces come ashore, and then trap and destroy them in a massive artillery barrage and counter-attack. As a result, he only had 75 men stationed on the actual beach. And because of the 101st airborne's good work, the counter-attack and artillery barrage was thwarted because roads were kept open, and the invaders were not trapped. I have read many books about this, including the longest day, and never learned that fact.
We headed towards the beach, and the kids found this life-size replica of a Higgins boat on the path through the sea wall. Walking through that wall to our first view of the ocean, my breath was taken away as I saw what it looked like at low-tide:
Imagine having to run across all of that, in a hundred pounds of wet gear, with machine guns shooting at you from the front and sides, in what is known as enfilading fire (which, I learned from Tom, is fire that is aimed long-ways down a beach, not just directly at it).
Here Tom is explaining the concept -- that the pillboxes in the distance would be shooting up towards us, not directly out to the sea, and from the other side, the same thing. I cannot get that image out of my mind now -- being there, and seeing how far it was, and what they faced, really brought home to me the sheer courage it required.
Here is a view that a German defender may have had back in the time, complete with barbed wire from the Atlantic Wall.
From there, we headed to St. Mer Eglise, the little town and church made famous in the movie "The Longest Day," with a replica of the paratrooper parachute still hanging from the steeple.
We learned from Tom that almost everything about the movie is wrong, except for the fact that a paratrooper did get stuck on the steeple. But the town was so grateful for the paratroopers, that they replaced the broken glass with stained glass honoring them, in what was, for a church, quite a controversial decision. Tom educated us on how the airborne divisions, particularly the 101st, made such a difference at Utah Beach, in terms of the possible outcomes. It was a pleasant little stop on our tour. From there, we headed north, towards Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach.
For those who don't know, Pointe Du Hoc is a cliff top that was supposed to have contained massive gun emplacements that could rain destruction down on the ships landing at Omaha Beach. The Allies received late intelligence that the guns had been pulled back, but the could not take the chance that they were still there, so then sent the US Army Rangers in to climb the cliffs, under fire, and secure them so no weapons could be brought to bear. Imagine having to climb what is pictured below while people are shooting at you from above.
I can't even imagine how hard that must have been. The US had worked hard to shell and bomb the Pointe, and the evidence of that shelling is all around still (one of the few places in Normandy where you still see it).
But the German fortifications were alternately well hidden and massive, as well as difficult to penetrate.
Even so, the allies did manage to do puncture it at times, which the kids found out by scrambling through some of the wreckage.
The monument where they first came up is inspiring. But also inspiring is the story Tom told us of how many made it up and survived til night time of the first day (very few of their original number), and then how they were viciously counterattacked by superior forces for at least two days, holding their own, not knowing even if the invasion had succeeded or failed. Life saving help came from the battleship Texas, who helped forestall the assault with deadly accurate shelling. Of course Alden called it, and somehow knew about this ahead of Tom's lecture. The picture below is on the way in to the Pointe, and he stopped to exclaim, "Naval gunfire! Probably from the battleship Texas!" That boy is an encyclopedia of all things naval.
And just behind all this, we saw the infamous hedgerows, so hard for the allies to get through in 1944, but so very beautiful now.
From there, we were off to Omaha Beach. It was not what we expected. First of all, it was now high tide, and it looked nothing like the beach of stories or Utah beach, which we had visited only six hours before. Second, it was full of people playing, with beach homes just off the sand. We were somewhat taken aback.
We really had to use our imagination to see it as the battlefield it once was. Being at Utah beach earlier in the day at low tide helped, as did Tom, our ever-informative guide. He pointed at the high bluffs up and behind the rock wall, indicating that those bluffs contained all the hidden machine gun nests that rained a crossfire of horror up and down the length of the beach; he asked us to think about the few GI's that actually made it to the rock wall you see in these pictures, finally finding some protection from the murderous fire, but who knew the tide was coming in, and would wash them away if they did not get over that wall and charge those lethal hills behind it, across yet another flat expanse that is now lined with shops and homes. He told us about how while at Utah Beach there had only been 75 defenders, at Omaha beach there were over 1700, all battle hardened veterans of the Eastern Front, well trained and tough. He explained that cloud cover had caused allied bombers to entirely miss those defenses, dropping well behind them (because they didn't want to hit their own people on the beach), and leaving them almost entirely intact. Finally, he told of a veteran who had come to this beach as it looks now, and had shed tears, not because it was not preserved as a battlefield, but because, as he said, "this is exactly what we fought for--" to make the world peaceful, a place where kids and grandkids could come and play. Tom then led us up to the American cemetery, which stands exactly on the ground where the defenders that had killed so many Americans had stood -- on the bluffs above this beach.
The entrance is beautiful, lined with roses and red petunias, and this stunning statue said to represent the angel spirit of the men who rest there.
From this spot you can look down, and see the trail that the Americans were first able to escape off of the beach and reach for higher ground.
Then as you head out toward the cemetery, this is the sight that greets you, and beckons you on:
The crosses (and some Stars of David) stretch in all directions, for what seems like miles. Your eyes can't take it all in. They come from all over: New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, even Utah:
I was in awe, so grateful that so many were willing to sacrifice so much for a one word ideal -- freedom. As we walked about, in my darker moments, I wondered if the new generations of Americans -- the ones so steeped in all our misdeeds and divisions and so quick to write off anything that is not pure in every whit -- would ever really appreciate this amazing sacrifice, or could ever do something like that again.
In one of the Museums along this coast, I listened to an interview of one of the survivors from Omaha beach. They all knew they were going to die--well known pre-invasion estimates had indicated that as much as 80% of the first wave would not survive (an estimate that proved accurate at Omaha beach). He said, "it is a heck of a thing to know you are just being thrown out to be slaughtered;" but they went anyway, "because somebody had to do it." I hope with all my heart that as a country we can remember that flawed though we may be, we are the last, best hope for freedom and individual rights in the world on most days, and that is something special, something worth celebrating, and even fighting for. If nothing else, we need to absolutely reverence those, like the young men here, that gave all they had to see that hope prevail in a very dark time. It would be a sad thing for these heroes to find that we are now so bitter and divided that we are unable to meet their high standards of sacrifice for the hope of a better country and a better world.
From somber Omaha, we headed back to Bayeaux, for a final, blessedly peaceful night there. Here is a view out of our hotel window from that evening. To me, it is quintessential France.
The following morning we headed towards Paris via the Overlord Museum and the town of Arromanches, overlooking the British Beaches. The Overlord Museum had a few very nice exhibits on the invasion, with nice tanks on display.
It also contained these stories from Omaha Beach, which we read with great interest. Following the Overlord Museum, we stopped at Longues-sur-Mer, the only place along the entire coast where the German guns and emplacements present and used on D-Day (firing on both Omaha and Gold Beaches) remain. It was really cool to see them.
From their tops, you can still see the remains of the Mulberry Harbor at Arromanches, which the Allies towed across the channel to all ow them to unload the massive supplies and troop concentrations they would need to push Germany out of France. We headed to Arromanches to get a better view.
It was a really beautiful, peaceful place, so different from that day, reminding us of the hope that the passage of time can reveal. As we drove out, we saw a small memorial to the soldiers that came ashore on the British beaches, presenting them as the ghosts that they remain, haunting over this place of such sacrifice and horror.
From there, we were off to Paris, where we quickly learned that departing Charles De Gaulle is its own kind of horror, the kind that involves interminable waiting in security as two lone frenchmen, very deliberately and methodically, with all appropriate breaks, check the credentials of the hundreds of people in front of you. We made it, but by the skin of our teeth. And with that, we were back for the second half of our time in England.
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