European Vacation - Normandy

NORMANDY

On Friday, July 18th we drove to Caen and checked into our hotel. From there we drove the coast through some very old towns with winding, narrow roads to stop at the various sites of Normandy's Landing Beaches.

JUNO

Juno Beach was our first stop. This is the beach that the Canadians were assigned to capture. It was a difficult task with having to deal with the sea conditions and the dangerous coastal reefs. The loss of soliders here was significant as many died facing fire from the German snipers.

GOLD

Next we drove to the costal sector that was assinged to the British Corps. We parked our vehcile and got out to an amazing view of the Atlantic Ocean and vestiges of the aritifical harbour. We walked down into the own of Arromanches where we had lunch and spent time right down on the beach close up to remains of the artificial harbour. It was a steep decent along a footpath into the town. Along the way we passed by a radar base, a Sherman tank, and remains of the causeways. It was spectacular to see how much of the harbour was left.

OMAHA

Omaha was one of the landing beaches for the American troops. It was here at Pointe du Hoc that the Germans built a powerful artillery battery that was capable of covering a considerable section of the coast. Of the 225 Rangers who embarked the steep cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, only 90 were capable of fighting and 80 of them had lost their lives on this tiny corner of Norman soil. The lanscape of this section of land was changed drastically by the bomb craters that were created. A couple German shelters, a munitions store, and many bunkers still remain today.

We also stopped at Colleville where the American cemetary is situated. The cemetary contains 9,386 white marble crosses. A father and son lie beside each other and in 33 other instances, brothers are buried side by side. 307 graves bear the inscription "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known only to God." We were awestruck standing in that cemetary as we stopped to remember all of those who lost there life fighting for our freedom.

UTAH

We only made one stop here as it was getting late. We stopped at Sainte-Mere-Eglise. The little village is famous because a group of paratroopers were accidently dropped right in the heart of this village during the night of June 5, 1944. One of the paratroopers, John Steele, had his parachute catch on the balusters of the belfry. He hung here for a number of hours before he was rescued. Today, a legendary mannequin hangs in the spot representing the paratrooper.

For Terry, this part of the trip was a highlight. He could have spent days here exploring and visiting the museums - maybe one day...