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| Normandy American Cemetery |
With so much to tell you about our Normandy visits, I’ll be breaking this up in different posts. To begin our day, picking up the car at Europa car rental before heading to the Normandy beaches was an adventure. We decided we would walk to the location which was only 2 1/2 miles.
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| My tailwind. He’s always walking behind me. |
It was a nice walk through town with sidewalks until we got out to the last stretch, maybe 1/2 mile. We were walking on a busy two lane highway in the grass.
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| Chuck and his trusty Fiat 300. It was tiny but it was a nice car. |
Chuck was a little nervous. I just wanted to get there so we trudged on! Close to the rental agency, we couldn’t cross a fence without walking a little further than we really wanted. Just before the agency, there was a grassy down hill slope into a small clearing that we could walk around and get to the paved area of the road.
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| Nice landscaped trees leading to the cemetery |
At first, I’m like, hey lets slide down the hill, we should be ok but realized it was early in the morning and the grass was still wet so we walked down the hill at an angle and we didn’t break anything! A miracle! We picked up a Fiat 300 this time.
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| The massive amounts of headstones was unimaginable. |
You’d be amazed at how much technology is in this little car. We had a power supply and USB. Even the little Renault Twingo had a USB. It was an automatic with one of those functions to shift gears if you choose.
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| A replica of one of the deterrents that Hitler had in the water on the beaches |
At first Chuck had a hard time getting it to work right. We kept getting stuck in neutral but he finally got the hang of it by the time we returned home.
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| Homemade radio hidden inside a cigar box to allow communication.The ride to Colleville-sur-Mer, France was about 2 1/2 hours. It was pleasant, with no wrong turns and the weather was perfect |
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| One of the most successful deceptions was a fictitious U.S. Army group codenamed Operation Quicksilver. The Germans knew General Patton well and believed it was real. |
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| Inflatable tanks and trucks for the fictitious military mission, Operation Quicksilver. Germans believed the attack would be in Pas de Calais, miles north of the beaches. |
Our first stop was at the Normandy American Cemetery located in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. This was about an hour and 1/2 from Deauville. We made a list of the top sites we wanted to see by priority so that if time ran out, we knew we would get to visit the main areas of our interest or if all else fails, come back another day.
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| Message to invade was delayed by a day due to weather. Eisenhower was asked why D-Day was so successful: Because we had better meteorologists than Germans. |
We had the choice of walking directly to the cemetery or perusing the museum first. We chose the museum first because we though we would be walking out to the Omaha beach afterwards.
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| A photo of the men exiting the landing craft, many not making it to shore. |
That later proved to be false as you cant enter from this area. We had to drive. The museum had a wealth of information. It walked you through the real story telling of the days and hours and minutes of the attacks. It started from the 2 years that started the preparation of D-Day by working with our Allies to capture all of what Hitler had occupied in Europe. The casualties were unfathomable but the end result was successful.
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| Many quotes were scattered throughout the museum from survivors of this day. |
Chuck wanted to visit Normandy to visit all the places that D-Day took place because Bedford, Virginia, his home town, lost the most boys per capita, on that day, June 6, 1944. The National D-Day memorial is located in Bedford, Virginia and is an amazing site to see. If Virginia is a trip you are interested in or you just happen to be in the area, Bedford is a small town located between Roanoke and Lynchburg.
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| This plaque showed the human cost of this war. Such a tragedy |
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| Personal effects bag |
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| Temporary graves for the men until they were moved to their final resting place. Their personal effects were sent to their families. |
They arrived on Omaha beach which was the most deadly for the U.S. military. The landing craft was off target and the tide was not out as far as expected so the multiple layers of bombs and artillery were waiting for them as well as the enemy.
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| Normandy American Memorial |
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| “Spirit of American youth rising through the waves” |
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| American flags waving at the cemetery |
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| Chapel at opposite end of memorial within the cemetery. |
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| Inside the Chapel |
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| Mural on the ceiling inside Chapel |
What hit me the most about this was how many drowned due to the weight of the guns and probably didn’t know how to swim. Also, the layers of deterrents in the sea that couldn’t be seen.
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| At the memorial, these diagrams of the invasion were embossed in the marble, This one of the landing beaches |
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| This one of the military operations in the rest of Western Europe |
We didn’t have the names of the men from Bedford with us so we didn’t attempt to look for their headstones, however we did see quite a few in the small area of markers we walked through, from Virginia. Most of the 9,000 killed are buried in this cemetery.
As we walked through the cemetery you could hear a deafening silence. It was very humbling and emotional knowing these men a.k.a boys gave their lives for our freedom. Each and every person that served or is currently serving in our military should be thanked by everyone. They and their families sacrifice(d) more than we can imagine for our freedom.
May God always bless our military!
WorldTravelReynolds 
This must have been a somber and humbling experience.
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This must have been a somber and humbling experience.
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