Normandy

We were up and out the door at 6:00 AM to catch the metro to Gare St. Lazare for our train to Caen and the D-Day Beaches.  We booked a personal tour that included an English-speaking guide with no more than 8 people in the group.  After a two-hour train ride from Paris, we met our guide Marilyn at the Caen train station and started our tour at the Caen War Memorial and Museum.  The museum and tour were excellent.  It did not solely focus on D-Day--it put the conflict in context beginning with the end of WW I.  We learned a lot of in-depth information that we didn't focus on in school.  Included with the tour was a very nice lunch (steak) and after lunch we spent the afternoon touring the D-Day beaches.

Mom and Pop are from Bedford, Virginia, home of the National D-Day Memorial.  Bedford was chosen as the site because per capita, it lost the most men of any U.S. community on D-Day.  Alex Kershaw wrote a great book, The Bedford Boys, that chronicles the story of the men of the 29th Division who were the first to land on Omaha Beach on June 6.  Marilyn was very familiar with the Bedford Boys and there is a special connection between Bedford and Vierville-sur-Mer, where the 29th Division landed.

Among the sites we visited were Arromanches, where you can still see the remains of an artificial harbor created to bring in troops and supplies after D-Day; Gold and Omaha Beaches; and Pointe du Hoc, where Army Rangers scaled a huge bluff in order to overtake a key German defensive position and neutralize its cannons.  However, the most striking site we visited was the American Cemetery at Colleville.  Here, there are 9,387 American troops who died on D-Day--only a small percentage as numerous families chose to have their sons repatriated after the war.  Rows upon rows of simple white crosses and Stars of David are precisely lined in the straightest rows you will ever see.  Although it is hard the read, the cross pictured here is of the grave of Bedford T. Hoback, one of the Bedford Boys of the 29th Division.  His brother Raymond's name is listed along with over 1,500 others along the memorial wall at the cemetery as his remains were never found.

While movies such as Saving Private Ryan try to accurately depict the magnitude of D-Day, it pales in comparison with actual footage and photos we saw during our visit.  While there are remnants of the war such as bomb craters and canon "pillboxes," you would never know the horrors and sacrifices that occurred almost 70 years ago by just watching the waves crash along the beaches.  Mom and Pop knew several of the Bedford Boys who survived the D-Day invasion, although the last survivor died this past year.  Having read The Bedford Boys and touring the museum and D-Day beaches, I have a better appreciation of the dedication and sacrifice of these brave men; however,  not having lived through it, I will never truly know.  Thank you to all who served and sacrificed and to all the brave men and women who continue to serve our great country.