At 9:30 this morning, we got picked up by our Normandy tour guide, Gary. This turned out to be a very long day of running around on and behind several invasion beach locations.
Our first stop was the lone German cemetery in Normandy. As expected, a very somber place. Of interest, there is a maple tree planted (with dedication plaque) here for each German soldier interned.
The most famous grave site here belongs to Michael Wittmann (SPzAbt 101 Tiger ace) and his crew. It was Wittmann who shot up an entire British armored column at Villers Bocage.
Next, we drove deep into the Norman countryside and found Graignes, where 170 mis-dropped paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne held off the 17th SS PzGdr Division for several days. Ultimately, the position was overrun, with disastrous consequences for the townsfolk.
A view of the flooded countryside from the town of Graignes.
Norman farmers have pulled out most of the bocage in the countryside...but it is still possible to find patches of this unique hedgerow, which gave attacking soldiers fits in the summer of 1944.
Next stop was Maisy gun battery, which was sighted on Omaha beach. The location was eventually overrun by American Rangers.
We then moved on to Point Du Hoc, the location of another German (evacuated) battery which was assaulted by Rangers on D-Day.
There is still a lot of evident devastation at Point Du Hoc.
We drove down Draw 1 at Omaha beach, and then along the coastal road to Draw 2. This is where American soldiers were able to penetrate the German defences and get behind the bunkers pinning down 29th division to the right at Draw 1 and 1st division to the left at Draw 3. You can still see the switchback path going up the hillside which constituted the draw. This view is from the waterline as it would have been on June 6th, 1944. It's a long way to the sea wall!
We had lunch at Draw 3 and then moved on to the American cemetery.
And then the British cemetery at Bayeaux. The gravestones here are very moving, as each bears a personal message from family members.
Late in the afternoon it started raining. Never mind, we moved on towards the Canadian sector. Our first stop was Abbaye D'Ardenne, where Kurt Meyer set up the headquarters for 12th SS PzDiv as he dug in to fight the Canadians coming up from Juno beach towards Caen. This was also the site of the infamous Canadian prisoner massacre.
The gateway into the abbey compound.
Our guide, Gary, was a nice guy. Ex British Airborne Engineer. And alcoholic. But we didn't hold that against him.
We finished off the tour with Rots and Bretteville, where there are several monuments to the Canadian (Regina Rifles) and British (46 Commando) formations that fought here against Meyer's 12th SS.
After 12 hours of touring we were pretty beat...Kimberley gave Gary the stink eye when he had us get out of the car one last time in the rain to look at Montgomery's HQ compound at Creully.
In any event, the day ended and it was too late (and we were too cold and tired) to go into town for food. We choked down some M&Ms and went to sleep.
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