Day 6 Recap - Normandy

Today was a totally different feel for the kids.  We started off after a breakfast of cereal and fruit at the hotel toward the landing beaches of Normandy.  Our first stop was the American Cemetery on Omaha Beach, where more than 9,300 American service men and women are buried.  On the morning of June 6, 1944, in a carefully planned invasion, the allies came ashore to beat the Germans back and eventually reclaim Germany.  However it was a stormy day, and they faced fierce resistance from the Germans who were able to fire on them from high on the cliffs as the troops unloaded on the beaches and stormed up to the cliffs. 

The cemetery is quite sobering.  It is filled with white crosses and stars (for the Jewish soldiers) lined up in rows stretching to the beach where they landed.  There's a memorial at the site with a reflecting pool with a beautiful statue and maps of the landing.  It is surrounded by a wall featuring the names of the soldiers whose remains were never found.  The kids were very somber as we walked around, feeling it truly come to life and imagining the soldiers as they got off the boats knowing they faced near certain death.  Many compared it to Arlington, and it was difficult for them to take it all in.  I think it made the whole war so much more contextualized for them, as it's not the war of their generation - but they were able to compare it to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and make those connections.  It really is a sobering experience to walk through the cemetery and while it is tranquil, it's also very sad.

After exploring the cemetery, we went in to the visitor's center which has amazing exhibits of the planning that went into D-day and the logistics that had to be covered.  The kids were fascinated with the personal stories of the soldiers involved in that day and we could have easily spent the entire day learning about it.  If you ever have the chance to come this way, I highly recommend you make this a stop on your itinerary.


Next we took a short bus ride through the Normandy countryside to the town of Arromanches.  This was not a landing beach - because the Allies had other plans for it.  As soon as the landing occurred, engineers began building an artificial port here to allow for supply ships to support the advancing troops.  It was absolutely vital to the success of the campaign.  They built the entire port in England, steamed it over and assembled it in the sea within 2 days of the landing.  At the museum we learned about how they built the port using old ships they sunk, huge concrete sea wall breakers and made a steel road that adjusted for the tides and allowed the heavy vehicles to be driven over the sea onto the beaches.  We toured the little museum and walked down onto the beach as well.  While not as sober as the cemetery, it was still very profound seeing the vast area that had to be covered and protected.  While we were here we had some lunch and did some shopping too.

Our next step was Omaha beach, not far away.  There are 2 large memorials here to the soldiers who died fighting for freedom.  Many students walked out onto the sand and collected bottles of it to take home.  It was very obvious here how flat and wide the beach was, and how at low tide when the soldiers landed they was no protection for them as they advanced toward the hills and cliffs to face the Germans firing at them.  All of the buildings along here had been destroyed in the pre-landing bombings so the buildings there now have been reconstructed and many are quite substantial as this is now a wealthier area.

Our last stop of the day was at Pointe du Hoc.  This is a cliff that juts into the channel and allows for views of both Juno and Omaha beaches.  The Germans had heavily fortified it and believed it to be unassailable.  However it was key for the Allies to get control of this area and to destroy the long-range guns the Nazis had trained on the landing beaches.  The Army Rangers were tasked with this challenge - as they disembarked they faced 125 foot cliffs that had to be scaled in the rain, loaded down with equipment, as the Germans fired on them.  They used rocket-propelled ladders to attach to the top of the cliffs and then climb up.   Sometimes the ropes gave way, sometimes they were cut by Germans.  Once they reached the top they were able to destroy the weapons, which had been hidden, and retake the point.  But reinforcements could not arrive for 2 more days and by that time only 90 of the 225 men who had landed were still alive.


This area is full of craters from the pre-bombing, barbed wire that Nazis had installed to prevent an invasion and bunker remains of where the Nazis hid to fire upon approaching soldiers.  The kids seemed to enjoy the chance to explore this area, which is still very rugged, and to imagine what the Germans must have seen that morning.  It was also very clear how rough and rugged the cliffs are that the soldiers had to scale.

Next it was on to the hotel in Caen (where the President of France is also staying tonight to give a speech - alas, he is not in our hotel!).  We checked in, got the wi-fi password and then had dinner at the hotel tonight.  We enjoyed spaghetti bolognaise (with a meat sauce), salad with ham and cheese, and a dessert of sponge cake with mixed fruit topping. 

Everyone is tired tonight after a long day and tomorrow is our last full day in France.  We'll be heading to the cathedral in Rouen to learn about Joan of Arc and how she was burned at the stake, and then finishing up with a visit to the chateau of Versailles and then back to the Champs-Elysées for our final dinner.