Sunday was another relaxing day at sea. We played cards, read and people watched…the
days go by fast. We are still eating in
the Horizon Court..we dress once a day.
And the food choices are excellent.
Seas are very calm, but it’s cold and cloudy. We went south from Ireland and turned left into the English Channel towards France. We dock early and our tour starts at 8
a.m.
Monday:
Le Havre, which lies along the English Channel on France's
western coast, is the common port-of-entry for big ships calling at Paris and
most typically a place to go through on your way to the City of Lights. While
Le Havre is an ancient and textured city, dating back to the 16th century, it
was very badly bombed during World War II, losing much of its historic appeal.
Even still, it's been added to UNESCO's list of world heritage .
Many on the ship chose to make the 3 hour train/motorcoach
trip to Paris; we opted for a tour of Normandy. There were 8 of us on a privately booked tour (connected up
through Cruise Critic). The tour was
called “The Band of Brothers Tour” and was with Overlord Tours. They took us to the main sites of the Omaha
Beach sector and followed the footsteps of the famous Band of Brothers (Easy
Company of the 101st Airborne Division ).
We watched the DVD series Band of Brothers to refresh our
memories on what all happened and got
familiar with the men in the 101st Airborne and Easy Company and the
areas where they landed and fought. The
series was remarkable….we watched it twice.
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched the largest
amphibious attack in history on five
beaches at Normandy. Nearly 7,000 vessels were involved in the landing and
12,000 aircraft flying 14,000 sorties.
By the 4th of July, one million men had landed, 148,000
vehicles with half-a-billion tons of supplies.
Today, there are several cemeteries in Normandy, including Bayeaux, the
largest British cemetery in the world with 4,648 buried and La Cambe, where
21,111 Germans are buried
Words in a blog cannot express the things we saw today. It was a hurried trip to see the highlights
and there was so much we missed. But
the things we saw were spectacular and
makes us want to come back. You could
spend days and days exploring Normandy.
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| One of 3 houses along the beach that survived the attack |
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| On Omaha Beach |
The day started about 8 as they picked us up at the
ship. The group we were with were from
New York, Gettysburg, and Texas.
Interesting group of people, very nice and fun to be with. There were about 3 vans (8 plus driver per
van). The roads are great…4 lane
divided highway with beautiful countryside…large farms with typical
French-looking houses (chimneys on both ends).
Fields of yellow canola (seeds are used to make canola oil) and cows,
sheep and blooming apple trees. It took
about 2 hours (with a pit stop) to get to the first stop—Omaha Beach. We walked right down on the beach to get the
perspective of the landings. Then we
looked up to the German bunkers overlooking the beach about 130 feet up.
Scenes from the Beach:
 |
German bunkers overlooking
from the beach |
Our guide, Sophie, had a strong French accent and was
sometimes difficult to understand, but she knew her history down to the gun
placements and was very good. One
thing that she emphasized and was new to us was that the German machine guns
from the ridges were shooting crossfire as opposed to shooting straight out
towards the sea. This was intended to
prevent the landing parties from reaching the bunkers holding the main German
artillary.
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| Memorial at Pointe du Hoc on top of an observation bunker |
From there we went to Point du Hoc, a point (literally)
between Omaha Beach and Utah Beach where the Rangers scaled the cliffs during
heavy machine gun fire in order to destroy German gun placements located on top
of the cliffs. When they got to the
top, the guns had been moved back about 2 miles inland (due to the bombing of
the coastline in preparation for the invasion). When they got to the top, one was quoted as saying, “We did all
this for nothing?” So one of the men
found a trail and followed it and found the German guns. These pictures show the bunkers, the blown
ammunition bunkers and the lookout bunker off the point. Bunkers were everywhere, mostly connected
with tunnels. Huge bombing craters
everywhere. Amazing.
Sainte Mere Eglise was next.
A little town very prominent in the Band of Brothers movie. The paratroopers landed in localities all
over the area (not according to the plans)
When the Germans heard the planes, they started shooting and many planes
were hit and went down some with the paratroopers still on board. Others jumped when the planes got hit and
missed their drop zones completely. The
best laid plans were wrong that night.
The 82nd and 101st were completely off their zones
. Some landed in a field that had been
flooded by the Germans and with 130 lbs of equipment on them, drowned.
 |
| Ste Mere Eglise |
One trooper, Pvt. Steele, is noted for landing in Sainte Mere
Eglise and hung his parachute on the church steeple in the middle of town. In the movie, “The Longest Day”, Red Buttons
played this character. While he hung
there, Germans were all around and saw him move. They shot him—in the foot.
He hung there for two hours playing dead before the Allies got organized
and proceeded into town. After
surviving that, he died years later of throat cancer—he had started smoking in
the war.
There is a parachute and manniquin dressed in military garb
hanging from the church today. The
church is beautiful and just like we saw in the movies (except for the damage
that the movie showed). There is a
stained glass window in the church in memorial to the paratroopers that lost
their lives in the liberation of Normandy.
A huge organ has been donated and dedicated to all, military and
civilians, who died there.
Scenes frorm Sainte Mere Eglise:
 |
| Inside the church |
 |
| Organ |
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| Ste Mere Eglise |
 |
| Church at Angoville-au-Plain |
We ate lunch in Sainte Mere Eglise, but only had a short time
to look around. So we loaded back in
the van and headed via back roads for Angoville-au-Plain, a little, little
town where the battle raged for 3 days
around a little church. Two
paratrooper medics from the 101st landed there (they were two of the
few who actually landed where they were meant to land—others died as they
landed) and set up a make shift hospital in the church. They saved the lives of over 80 people
(local and military) including two German soldiers. The town was taken over by German soldiers and because the
soldiers had treated and saved the German soldiers’ lives, the German commander
put a guard outside the church for protection.
Allied forces took back control later.
Inside the church, there were pews that still showed blood
stains where the
injured were treated.
This picture shows the bloodstain of a 19 year old boy who died from a
head wound. Also, in the church are
several stained glass windows honoring the soldiers, the civilians and the
war. Two of the windows are directly
across from one another and show identical saints—two twin brother saints. Their images are in the middle of the
church. During the battle,
 |
| Crack in the floor where the mortor fell |
 |
| One of the twin saints |
when the
medics were operating inside the church, they looked up at a noise, then a
mortor shell fell to the floor right between the saints….it never exploded.
There was a local family nearby whose home was surrounded by
Germans…
eventually killing the father, mother and sister of a 13 year old
boy. The boy was wounded and ended up
in the church to be treated. The medics
saved his life. The two medics were
Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore. In
recent years, Robert Wright, while touring Normandy, returned to the town and
to the church. After he recognized
where he actually was and when the townspeople learned of who he was, they
immediately made arrangements for him to be reunited with the 13 year old boy,
now a grown man. It was an amazing
story…one of many, I’m sure.
Robert Wright died and his choice was to be buried in the
little cemetery by the church. There is
a simple marker with the initials
R. E. W .
One more stop was via back roads and is available only to the
Overlord
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| Brecourt Manor Farm |
 |
| Bunker line |
Tours….access to the exact spot of a battle shown in the Band of
Brothers movie. It is located at the
farm of Brecourt Manor—just simply a cow pasture. Orders were given Lt Winters to take out 4 German bunkers that
were known to be firing towards Utah Beach.
They did it . The strategy used
for that battle is still used today in ground attacks. The bunkers/guns were
found and destroyed. One of the men in
the Easy Company (Marlarky) was actually contacted by the tour company for
verification of the exact location. He
came over and showed them exactly where it was and what happened that day.
Whew. Fast and
Furious, but so enlightening, so moving, so awesome. We recommend seeing the movie….we’ll see it again when we get
home. There are several other movies
that also are about the Normandy invasion.
“Saving Private Ryan” is one that we’d like to see again.
We got back to the ship about 6 p.m., ate a great dinner and
will relax for the evening. Watched
motorcoach after motorcoach return from various tours around Normandy and
Paris…must have been 20-30—unloading masses of people. Sooooo
glad we took this smaller tour where we could get to places the coaches
cannot.
Believe it or not: Ronnie wants to come back to France. He loved it. Wonders will never cease.
Views from the countryside:
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| French Cow (Mooo Oui) |
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| Church that survived the bombing |
Tomorrow (Tuesday), we take the train from Rotterdam into
Amsterdam – we have tickets for the canal HoHo boat. And hopefully, free wifi to get some blogs posted.
Had to buy more internet minutes...pics are taking all my minutes to load. We are in Hamburg, Germany now...will post again when we get time....
Bonjour....
injured were treated.
This picture shows the bloodstain of a 19 year old boy who died from a
head wound. Also, in the church are
several stained glass windows honoring the soldiers, the civilians and the
war. Two of the windows are directly
across from one another and show identical saints—two twin brother saints. Their images are in the middle of the
church. During the battle,
eventually killing the father, mother and sister of a 13 year old
boy. The boy was wounded and ended up
in the church to be treated. The medics
saved his life. The two medics were
Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore. In
recent years, Robert Wright, while touring Normandy, returned to the town and
to the church. After he recognized
where he actually was and when the townspeople learned of who he was, they
immediately made arrangements for him to be reunited with the 13 year old boy,
now a grown man. It was an amazing
story…one of many, I’m sure.
Such a good post. Loved all the information and pics!
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