I have to warn you, this post is probably going to be long. This was one of my favorite things we did and I learned a lot on our tour of the D-Day sites and want to share everything I can remember.
The next day we took an all day tour of the D-Day beaches and the areas that the Band of Brothers series was placed. We left Bayeux at 8:30 and didn’t get back until 6:00, so it really was an all day tour. Our tour was through Overlord Tours, a company highly recommended on the Rick Steves message boards. And we could see why. Our guide was Stephane (prounounced Stef-on) and he was very good. He grew up in France, served in the military, spent is summers at his grandmother’s (who remembers the war) near Pont de Hoc (playing in the bunkers and on the beaches), and is an avid history person. He would point to a house and tell us about something that happened there.
He also had a book with lots of different maps (like where the beaches are, where ships were supposed to land, where they actually landed, where parachuters were supposed to be dropped, where they were actually dropped, etc) as well as pictures from the war. He would hold up a picture and point to a wall or a house that was in the background of the picture, and then point to where the wall or house is today. It was quite cool. We were in an 8 passenger van with 2 other couples and one guy from Hawaii traveling alone.
Stephane knew lots of details about all the areas we went to, told us lots of stories, was humorous, but respectful. We focused on the American sector and the areas covered by Easy Company (from Band of Brothers).
From Bayeux we went to Omaha Beach. I always imagined it like any other beach, but it is quite a bit larger (about 6 miles long) than I expected. As we were driving there was a sign for golfing on Omaha Beach. It’s hard to realize that this is a beach like any other still, the same way you might golf on Pebble Beach. But there’s so much history and there was so much sacrifice made at this beach.
We started at some of the German bunkers on the cliffs above Omaha Beach, Longues Sur Mer. One is fully intact, gun and all. The others are in various states of being destroyed. You can go inside the bunker, touch the gun that is still there, and imagine what it must have been like to be there.
Fully intact bunker, and that's our guide, Stephane
The part of the ocean that could be seen from the bunkers.
How they were accurate in their shooting of ships, I have no idea.
Partially destroyed
Completely destroyed
That's a piece of the destroyed bunker, taken from next to the bunker.
I cannot imagine being there when that explosion happened.
Inside the bunker, that thing to the right is the back of the gun
That round metal thing in the ground is a piece of the gun from that bunker in the background.
Then we drove down to the beach itself. Stephane walked us out onto the sand and told us about the invasion. They had to land while the tide was out (but coming in) because of the obstacles the Germans had put in the water. At high tide they were hidden under water. But since the tide was out, there were long stretches of beach with no cover at all. They had been trained for a particular landing area, but the current carried almost all the troops off course, so they landed in an area that was unfamiliar. It’s amazing that anyone was able to survive in such a vulnerable area. And that they were able to take over the beach is an incredible feat.
Many men actually drowned by falling into the water with their heavy equipment. There is a strong rip tide that runs along the beach. Stephane told us about a time when he was doing a military training and fell in the water. He said if they hadn’t lifted him out by his backpack straps, he probably would have drowned under the weight and the current. During D-Day, men were just desperately trying to stay alive as the bullets rained down, realizing that your buddy fell in the water and needed to be pulled out would not have been as obvious.
Men that made it up the beach would hunker down in the sand dunes like
that line of sand (looks like hay bails). Virtually no protection from enemy fire.
From there we drove up to the American cemetery, which is above Omaha Beach. It’s a ways down from where we were on the beach, reminding us how large Omaha really was. We walked along the bath past thousands of white marble crosses and stars of David. There are a little less than 10,000 crosses or in the cemetery. Each cross had the person’s name, rank and squad, and home state, and the day he died.
Omaha Beach below the cemetery
It’s hard to imagine that each of those crosses was someone’s son, husband, brother, or friend. There were some crosses that didn’t have a name, they were an unknown soldier. The inscription where the name would have been says “Here rests a comrade in arms known but to God.” Stephane told us that for weeks bodies would wash ashore. They were men who’d drowned or had died on the beach and been covered and taken by the tide before it was safe to recover their body. By that point there was no way to identify the body and usually all tags or distinguishing writing was gone.
Son of Teddy Roosevelt the president
Each cross represents devastating news to someone and lives changed forever. I wish that every American could walk among those crosses and realize the sacrifice made by those soldiers and the sacrifice currently being made by thousands more.
There is a small chapel on one end of the cemetery. The words along the top read “These endured all and gave all that justice among nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace.”
On the ceiling inside is this picture:
The woman with the red on her head cradling the dead soldier represents France. On the other side is Lady Liberty covering a soldier who is fighting.
The memorial in the cemetery has a statue that represents American youth rising above the waves.
There was a veteran there, taking his picture with what I assume was his family by the memorial. He was old and in a wheelchair, but proudly wore his hat with all the pins and his jacket with bars on his chest telling his rank and achievements. I wish I had said something to him. I watched him and his family for a bit while Stephen took pictures. It didn’t seem like it was enough to just say “thank you,” but I didn’t know what else to say. And I also didn’t want to interrupt their family either. But I wish I’d even just said “thank you.”
Behind the memorial is the Garden of the Missing. This huge wall lists the names of the soldiers whose bodies were never found. There are parachuters and mechanics, enlisted men and officers. These families never had the choice of burying their loved one at home or in France, never knew for sure what had happened to them. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.
Meticulous care of the cemetery. These gardeners had little shears
and were going around the base of every cross.
We left the cemetery and headed farther down Omaha Beach to a memorial for the National Guard. It is made on top of what was a German bunker. You can still see the gun underneath today.
The gun under the bunker
The cement block that is the base of the pier was part of a port the Allies made. During
a bad storm, it washed ashore and was too large to move. So today it's the foundation
of a pier you can walk out onto.
One of the reasons the D-Day invasion was successful is because the Germans were expecting an invasion farther east on the coast, along an area close to England. The best troops and most fortified beaches were there. The Germans were still in the process of fortifying the coast line along Normandy. Omaha was almost finished, which is why so many lives were lost on the Allied side. Utah Beach was not nearly as close to being finished (Stephane told us the percentages of completion, but I’m on the plane home right now and can’t look them up, I’ll add them later if I remember). While soldiers were still killed on Utah Beach, the numbers were drastically less than those on Omaha.
After the National Guard memorial we headed up to Pont du Hoc, famous for the Army Rangers who scaled the seemingly unclimbable cliffs. Their mission was to take out the guns that intelligence said was still there, despite heavy bombing. The landscape is very hilly. Not naturally hilly. But hilly because of all the bombs that were dropped on the area.
A crater created by a bomb. Big, but not as impressive until....
Stephane, not a small guy, went down into the crater to give us
perspective at how impressive it really was.
The plan was for bombers to bomb the German fortifications ahead of the waves of soldiers (at every site). The Omaha Beach bombings were ineffective, but the Pont du Hoc bombings hit their targets. However, because of currents and bad weather, the Rangers took longer than expected to reach the cliff. So instead of having a clear path while the Germans were still taking cover, the Germans had had time to come out of cover and man their guns.
A bunker, the guns are coming out of that tiny opening
Inside that bunker, looking through that little opening.
(That person's feet is where we took the last picture from)
Also, the rigs that were supposed to shoot the grappling hooks to the top of the cliffs would shoot plenty high enough....with dry ropes. But because they had to enter the water before reaching the side of the cliff, everything was soaked. Most of the grappling hooks didn’t shoot high enough, and those that did gave the Germans a target. Most of them ended up climbing the cliff using a British fire ladder.
The guns that intelligence had been seeing were actually just telephone poles disguised as guns to keep the Allies bombing the same place, while the actual guns were pulled farther back. However, they weren’t pulled far. While a German troop was supposedly being reprimanded for partying the night before, a small group of Rangers located the gun and threw in silent grenades that melted the machinery and disabled the guns. They actually had to go get more of the grenades and come back, all unnoticed.
The guns they were looking for
A destroyed bunker
The rangers were supposed to set off a flare at the top of Pont du Hoc to show they were at the top and were successful. Another wave of Rangers would then move in. Since they were delayed, the flair wasn’t set off in time and the remaining Rangers instead landed at Omaha Beach. It is speculated that this was the turning point on Omaha Beach, when the highly trained Rangers helped push onwards.
Next we moved on to St Mere Eglise, famous for the parachuter that ended up caught on the church steeple.
Unfortunately for him and several other parachuters, they landed right in the middle of the square in the middle of a group of Germans (they were supposed to land outside the city. There is a dummy and his parachute on the steeple today, in remembrance of what happened.
The man actually survived. There were two Germans on the top of the church and when the parachuter got caught, his head hit the church and he was knocked unconscious. Thinking he was dead because he wasn’t moving, they didn’t bother with him. When he came to, he realized he needed to play dead. He moved enough that the Germans realized he was alive and cut him down where he was captured by Germans on the ground. Several days later (even with an injured foot from shrapnel while he was on the tower), he was able to escape.
The stained glass window in the church. Notice the
parachuters coming down the side.
We had lunch and went into a museum there. There were lots of replicas and dummies in uniforms with some artifacts.
The flowers are arranged to be the patches of the men who landed here.
One of the restaurants
After the museum we went to Beuzeville Au Plain, the site of the plane crash that Lt. Meehan (who was portrayed in Band of Brothers) was in. There is a memorial at a nearby church and then we drove the back roads to the field where the crash actually occured.
Then we went to Marmion’s Farm, which became a meeting place for many parachuters, including a few from Easy Company. Our tour company has special arrangements with the owners (who no longer live on the farm), so we were actually able to go inside and look in the now empty and abandoned buildings. We looked at pictures taken in the very place we were standing.
Picture we took
Picture from the war
You can see the windows and door in the current picture
match the windows and door from the wartime photo.
(I got this from the overlord tour website: www.overlordtour.com)
Then we went to Brecourt Manor, a famous battle from Band of Brothers. We went into the field where one of the guys climbed the tree to take out Germans who were firing on them. Brecourt Manor was taken by a group that had not been trained together, but was done so well that it is still taught at West Point today.
Thick hedgerows
Next we went to Utah Beach, the other beach invaded by Americans. The fortification of this beach wasn’t as completed and there were far fewer casualties compared to Omaha Beach.
After that we moved on to Angoville Au Plain. This church is preserved as it was during the war, only the windows have been replaced and the place was cleaned. This small church was used as a hospital by two doctors who treated Americans, Germans, and even a child. They were American military, but the fact that they treated Germans probably saved their lives and the hospital. Because they were treating wounded Germans, German soldiers left them alone. The blood stains are still on the wooden pews that were used as beds.
Blood stained pews
A shell was dropped through the roof and landed on the tile beside one of the doctors (the tile is still cracked), but miraculously it did not explode. There were actually two Germans hiding in the bell tower of the church. When they realized the Americans weren’t going to leave and the shell passed by them before landing in the church, they came down and surrendered.
Cracked tile where the shell landed
We drove past some other sites, but didn't get out of the car as it was getting late.
Sainte Marie du Mont WWI memorial
picture we saw on the tour
Lastly we went through Carentan, although we just looked at places from the car. Stephane had several pictures and pointed out where they were taken throughout the town.
These are both from the overlord tour website:
The day was long, but it didn’t feel like it was long. I would highly recommend the Overlord Tour company, they have done their research, know what they’re talking about, and obviously love what they do.
