The D-Day Beaches and American Cemetery

John Springman
Jun 2, 2016
2 min read

We had a very emotional and interesting tour of the beaches of Normandy yesterday. Our tour started with the beach at Arromanches, code named Gold by the Allies for the D-Day invasion. This was interesting because the British landed here, and through the inventiveness of one of their officer/engineers was able to develop a man-made harbor by sinking floating concrete pylons in the sand and anchoring them with a newly designed anchor. He then used more of the floating concrete pylons and was able to quickly build a roadway that allowed the Allies to offload a huge amount of material and personnel onto the secured beach. This was a key to the success of the Allies. You can see some of the guns that were used to defend this from counterattack, and you can see the beach. Some of the concrete pylons are still evident around the "harbor".

Our next stop was a Longues sur Mer where we toured the German gun emplacements. It was obvious that the Germans expected the invasion, and were well prepared and very dug in. With these guns, they could cover the entire horizon and beyond.

Our next stop was Omaha Beach. We saw the beach, of course, and there is a monument that had some remembrances left that were very touching. D-Day is a big deal in France. The French people seem very grateful. There were lots of school kids being taught by teachers at these sites. It is a big deal in the history of this nation.

Next we visited the American Cemetery. It was very emotional. I was holding it together pretty well until we came to a cross marked "known only to God", and then I lost it. We owe so much to these men. Over nine thousand men are buried here. There is a wall with thousands of names on one end of the cemetery that are men whose remains had not been found. A brass floweret marks the few whose remains have since been identified. I took a few photos to commemorate and help me remember my visit (like I will ever forget it), but after awhile it felt irreverent to be taking pictures, so I stopped.

Finally, we visited the site where an American Ranger battalion attacked the Nazi's at Pointe Du Hoc. This was probably the most important attack of all. The Rangers, numbering 238 men attacked this stronghold in advance of the invasion. They were landed in the wrong place, and lost the element of surprise, but they moved to the base of these cliffs, and under very heavy fire, using specially designed rope ladders, they scaled these cliffs and took out the German guns, which would have had devastating effect on the rest of the invasion. You can see pock marks in the concrete where our naval cannon hit. You can see the bomb craters that still remain. Only 98 of the 238 men survived the attack, and every one of them was wounded before the battle was over. We owe so much.

Our final stop was in the city of Bayeux. Here we viewed a tapestry that is over 1000 years old that tells the story of William, the Duke of Normandy who became William the Conquerer, King of England. We saw the beautiful cathedral of Bayeux and I took some pictures of the quaint little city center. These are a few of the things that were spared in the war. All in all, it was a good day!