D-Day 70 Years Later
A Travel Journal
This summer I had the chance to go to Normandy, France with my school, San Diego State University (SDSU). The school partnered with Normandy Allies which is a non-profit based group in the United States that “Perpetuates the memory of Allied accomplishments and sacrifices in World War II.” The trip was an incredible experience and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about WW II and D-Day.
During the trip I kept friends up to speed on what I was doing on the trip. I compiled it all into one piece here and I have also added some to it and made edits for grammar and clarity.
To prepare for this trip we had several required texts we had to read. Overlord: D-Day and the battle for Normandy by Max Hastings. This book gave a great overall education about the battle. The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the U.S Army 2nd Ranger Battalion by Douglas Brinkley. This was a very interesting book that tied in the Ranger’s assault on Point du Hoc and President Reagan’s speech on the 40th anniversary of the landings that brought attention to what the Rangers did there on D-Day. The Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw told the story of a company from the Virginia National Guard that was part of the 29th division, which was one of the first ashore on D-Day. They suffered tremendous casualties and it impacted the small town of Bedford tremendously. And the final book I read was Operation Jedburgh: D-Day and America’s First Shadow War by Colin Beavan. This book was great because it taught me about something that I had no idea had even happened. Before, during and after the invasion there were three man teams dropped in France that worked with the French resistance to fight Germans; very good book that I enjoyed a lot.
We also watched a few films to get prepare for the trip. The Longest Day, Ike and Army of Crime were all great movies that I enjoyed and learned from.
5/23/14
We left San Diego at noon and are flying to New York and then onto Paris overnight. We’ll get into Paris around noon also.
5/25/14
I didn’t miss a day we are now Paris! There was a big storm above New York city and we were diverted to Pittsburgh. We ended up leaving Pittsburgh at around 1800 and flew straight to Paris where we got in about 0900 or so.
It’s now 1150 and we are meeting at 1430, so I am going to try to grab a quick power nap since I have slept very little in the last two days and any sleep I got wasn’t very good quality sleep. But before I hit the rack for an hour or so I made myself hammer out some stuff on here because if I didn’t, it wouldn’t get done. I think a river cruise may be planned for tonight, but I’m not sure and we may be free to do what we want until Tuesday and then the formal plans for our trip will start.
Paris is a beautiful city. To me it is similar to D.C. in some ways, especially around the Louvre, it is a lot like the national mall with all the open spaces. I have been awake close to a day with only a nap on the grass at the Eiffel tower keeping me going and I’m pretty tired. I probably looked like a bum sleeping out there, but I was tired. I’m planning on getting up for a short run tomorrow. We have to be ready to go at 0900 so I am meeting up with some other students at 0645. I’ll be tired, but running around a new city or place is a great way to learn your way around. With that I am hitting the rack. Tomorrow we’re going to a French military museum and Notre Dame.
5/26/14
After starting the day with a run where we got a little lost, we went to an impressive military museum today that had exhibits which covered the medieval times and went all the way to WW II. It was originally a hospital that was built for the veterans of the Franco-Prussian war. While there we also saw where Napoleon is buried. I don’t know near enough about that guy and need to learn more about him and that time period. It seems like a very interesting part of France’s history. Judging by the insanely opulent building where he is buried, he was and still is a very revered person in France.
Notre Dame is an incredible structure. It had a crazy amount of people going through it, but it was still cool to go and check it out. Outside of Notre Dame is a bridge where couples go to put a lock on it together and throw the key into the water. I couldn’t believe how many locks were on it. There was a ridiculous amount.
We finished the day off by grabbing a couple of things at a grocery story and all eating together on a balcony at our hotel. Not a bad way to end the day.
Tomorrow we will be leaving Paris in the morning and headed to Normandy. On the way there we’ll visit the city of Caen, which was a major battle of D-Day, and a memorial there. Paris has been neat to walk around and explore, but seeing Normandy and learning more about what happened there is what I am really looking forward to.
And for Memorial day a good way to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice is to enjoy the day with family and friends. While never forgetting them or the families they left behind. That is exactly what they would have liked for you to do. Semper Fi brothers.
5/27/14
We left Paris somewhat early this morning on a bus and headed to the city of Caen. It was a good trip and the countryside reminded me of something you would see in the Virginia or Maryland around the Blue Ridge mountains. On the way here we stopped at the Museum of Peace. It was a good museum that did a good job on explaining the world wars and how they started and relate to each other. They also had a temporary exhibit that focused on the Cold War. Overall it was a great museum.
We are staying in the city of Bayeaux for the next few nights. It is a beautiful town and I much prefer it to Paris. It’s smaller, quiet and much cleaner than Paris. After we got here my roommate and I, a former Marine, walked around the town on our own for about an hour. We went to the cathedral here, which is right next to our hotel, and it is just as impressive to me as Notre Dame was in Paris. I don’t think it is quite as big as Notre Dame, but since it had only a few people in it there was much more room to look around and appreciate it. Notre Dame had thousands of people bustling through it.
Later in the day our professor took us through the cathedral again and showed us around the town. It is a beautiful place. We were told the town wasn’t damaged at all during the war. Anyone who has been here should be thankful for that.
While walking around I meet a Marine. He was wearing a University of Southern California hat and our professor who is an alumnus of USC struck up a conversation with him. He let him know that we had some Marines in our group and this salty old grunt came over and gave us both hearty Semper Fi’s and got really motivated and said, “Infantry is the only way to go!” He said it really loud and proud, but then said a little quieter “I’m too old for that now.” It seems like you can always count on running into a Marine no matter where you go.
Throughout the town there were tons of American, British and Canadian flags being flown. It seems like the town really wants to do a good job of honoring those coming to France for the 70th anniversary of the landings.
Tomorrow among other things we will be going to see the Bayeux Tapestry which shows the Norman conquest of England. It’s from the 1070s. Seeing old stuff like that is always interesting and I’m sure this won’t disappoint.
5/28/14
Today we started the day off by going to see the Bayeux Tapestry. It is thought to have been made around 1070 and it is close to 270 feet long. It is in a dark cool place and is in a semi-circle shaped room. Before you go in the museum, workers give you a small digital device about the size of a cell phone. You put it to your ear and it automatically starts and guides you through the different scenes of the tapestry by way of a voice talking to you. I enjoyed it and it’s always neat to see stuff that old up close and in person.
After that we walked to the local museum in Bayeux that focuses on D-Day. It was a good museum that was very well done.
Almost right next to the museum is a British war cemetery. There are approximately 5,000 service members who are from Britain and her colonies and a few Soviets, Czechs and Poles buried there. There were even some Germans in the cemetery. Our guide with the non-profit group Normandy Allies told us that American cemeteries only have Americans in them.
The cemetery was our last stop for the day and while we walked back to the hotel some friends and I came upon a memorial to reporters who have been killed. It was a beautiful memorial that was put up by the group Reporters Without Borders. Both of our last two stops were simply sad.
Tomorrow we will be going to Juno beach, the beach the Canadians landed on for D-Day. We will also be going to Pegasus Bridge which was an important bridge to take. British paratroopers parachuted in and took it before the Germans could destroy it.
5/29/14
Our day started on the beach the Canadians landed on, Juno beach. We had a great docent who was a young man from Canada over here for a few months while he is in college. Canada has a program where they send students out all over the world to help tell Canada’s story in places they have been involved in. It seems like a good program and a great opportunity for him and other young Canadians.
He took us through a German bunker that had just been re-discovered three years ago, but it has only been open since April. It was found when a local was walking their dog and it started digging a whole and found part of the bunker. It was almost completely filled with sand on the inside.
The bunker was off the beach a fair amount and behind a bluff which would not have been the best place to put a defensive emplacement. It wasn’t like that when the Germans built it though. The water used to come much farther up the beach, but that’s not the case anymore. I found this surprising since I thought the polar ice caps were melting and causing the water to rise all over the world. Apparently that’s not the case on that beach and if someone could explain that to me I’d appreciate it.
I had read about the Canadians during WW II and there were some interesting things about them. They started out the war by only sending people who volunteered to go overseas, only later did they have to resort to conscription, and not very much of it, to get the necessary bodies to replace their casualties. Canada also had close to 10 percent of their population overseas fighting during WW II. That’s an impressive number.
After Juno we went to Abbaye d’Ardenne. This was an old monastery that was used by the Germans as a command post. It was also where 20 Canadians were executed by Germans. There is a memorial there now that is cared for by a very old lady who married the son of the original caretaker. We had a small ceremony where we laid a maple leaf on the memorial while all the names of the Canadians were read off and a moment of silence was observed for them. The older lady there didn’t speak a lot of English, but it seemed like it meant a lot to her that our group took the time to do that.
When we left the old monastery the lady stood in her driveway and watched us until we were out of sight. I got the feeling that not a lot of people other than Canadians make it out there. You can read more about what happened there here.
The last stop for the day was Pegasus bridge. This was an important bridge for the allies to take and the British flew gliders in which held around 30 soldiers and took it. If you’ve ever seen the classic old movie “The Longest Day” a big scene in that movie was the taking of that bridge. There was a great museum there that had reproductions of gliders and the original bridge that had damage from the battle and after it when the Germans tried to destroy it so the allies couldn’t use it.
Tomorrow we will be going to Arromanches and among other things seeing the Mulberry harbors that were used to create temporary harbors to get supplies ashore to support the invasion. They are supposedly incredible engineering marvels that I’m looking forward to seeing.
5/30/14
The impressiveness of the Mulberry harbor, which was an artificial harbor the allies built, did not disappoint. There were two of them built: a British and an American one. We saw the remains of the British one today. There are about 20 of the huge concrete blocks left out in the ocean. The American Mulberry harbor was destroyed in a storm in late June 1944. They came up with some wildly innovative stuff during WW II and this is an excellent example of that.
After seeing the harbor and the great museum that was there we had lunch in the small town of Arromanches. It’s a cool town and some friends and I had a great lunch. The amount of baguettes, cheese and sausage I have eaten on this trip is out of control, but with all the walking we are doing it’s ok.
The last stop was to see the German guns at Longues-sur-Mer. We were told these are some of the best preserved gun emplacements from when the Germans were here. They are huge and in a very beautiful spot. For all my San Diego friends imagine the La Jolla Glider Port, but instead of UCSD behind you there are huge wheat fields behind you and the instead of having the Pacific ocean in front of you there is the English Channel. It’s a beautiful spot and it had to of been a great spot for German soldiers to be assigned to, that is until June 6th.
Tomorrow we go to Saint-Lô which was a city the Americans took after they landed.
5/31/14
Our day started on the outskirts of Saint-Lô at a memorial to the 29th division of the U.S. Army. At the ceremony were French veterans from their wars in Algeria and Vietnam and a few locals. The memorial was a wall that was hand built by volunteers and there were plaques on the wall honoring members of the 29th division. I saw two for soldiers that were from South Carolina. One was not far from home, Blythewood. His name was Claten Branham. I don’t know him, but there are a lot of Branhams from where I grew up. The ceremony was heartfelt and the Normans here that we’ve met are thankful for the sacrifices of American and allied forces to free them.
There was an older man there who was 14 when the Germans came and he seemed to be especially thankful that we came to the ceremony. He also took us out to a field where the 29th had a tough battle against Germans and he keeps flowers out there on the fence where an American was killed. Later after he left we went to another spot where the 29th was dug in and you can still see the fighting holes they used.
The next stop was to the city of Saint-Lô. This city was called the city of ruins after the war because over 70 percent of it was destroyed in the fighting. It was pretty much leveled. We had a British expatriate show us around and tell us about the city. Apparently a fair amount of Brits come down to Normandy to live, vacation and retire.
The city of Saint-Lô was the sight of a famous picture from WW II. If you Google “The Major of Saint-Lô” you’ll see a picture of a soldier’s body laid among the rubble of the church there with an American flag over him. The soldier was Thomas D. Howie, who was killed in the battle of Saint-Lô. Howie was a battalion commander in the 29th division. The day after he was killed his battalion brought his body in before the rest of the battalion so he could be the first in the city after it was liberated.
Howie was also a South Carolinian and a Citadel man. He graduated from there in 1929. At another memorial to the 29th division that we visited they have a section devoted to Howie with a “Big Red” flag to represent that he was from the corps of cadets at the Citadel. I even learned that the tower next to Summerall Chapel at The Citadel is named in his honor. You can read more about him here.
Tomorrow we go to a Ranger museum and to Pointe du Hoc which were the cliffs the Rangers climbed on D-Day with the mission to take out the huge guns there.
6/1/14
This morning we left Bayeux and moved to the small town of Grandcamp-Maisy. The town is right on the water and is beautiful. Once we got here we visited a small U.S. Army Ranger museum and learned more about how they came to be and their incredible D-Day mission to destroy the German guns at Pointe du Hoc.
After the museum we went to Pointe du Hoc to see the cliffs the Rangers had to climb on D-Day. The cliffs are very steep; they are pretty much straight up and down and six stories high. The Rangers were tasked with taking out German guns on the point that could hit American troops landing on the beaches called Utah and Omaha. They climbed ropes to the top under German machine-gun fire and grenades being thrown down on them. They took heavy casualties, but took the cliff. It was truly amazing to see the cliffs in person and to see how difficult a mission it must have been.
Our other stop for the day was a small castle that was built in 1357. It was used by the Germans until the Americans took it. An American psychological operations unit was there from June 1944 to August 1944. The owner of it showed us around and told us more about the American’s mission while they were there. It is now a B&B. The psychological unit there were German speaking Americans. A lot of them were Jews that had fled Germany when the Nazis came into power there. They were known as the “Ritchie Boys” and you can read more about them here.
The father of the owner of the B&B was there also and he has an interesting story. He was a small boy during WW II and shortly after D-Day, Gen. Rommel, a famous German general, was injured in a car wreck. He was brought to this man’s house and even slept in his bed. Not too many people can say they had a general as famous as Rommel sleep in their bed.
Tomorrow we go to the American war cemetery and Omaha beach, which was one of the two beaches the Americans landed on.
6/2/14
Our day started on Omaha beach, where Americans of the 29th and 1st division came ashore on D-Day. We were there at low to mid tide which was when they landed. Omaha beach is about three miles wide and was almost 500 yards to get from where the ocean meets the land. The bluffs above the beach were tall and would have given the Germans dug in there a definite advantage. After being on the beach we went up to the bluffs to see the German point of view. On the bluffs we saw several German machine gun bunkers and heavy gun emplacements.
A lot of the bunkers on D-Day were knocked out with naval gunfire. The USS Texas was a battleship that turned broadside and fired her guns at the bunkers and finally knocked them out. The Texas was so close to shore the bottom of her was dragging on the ocean floor. I can’t imagine how intense it must have been on the beach with German machine-gun fire, mortars and artillery coming down on you and a battleship behind you shooting point blank at targets.
While on the beach I saw a familiar sight from my time in DC. The unmistakable Marine One helicopters came in over the beach. I imagine they are the advance party for when President Obama comes over.
After the beach we went to the American cemetery. There are almost 10,000 American service members buried there. It’s a sobering sight to see that many graves that are all associated with one war. And it’s crazy to think that 10,000 lives is a fraction of the total lives lost in WW II.
They are getting ready for a ton of dignitaries to be there on June, 6th so they are setting up for the incoming VIPs and heads of state. It wasn’t the type of atmosphere that is normally in a cemetery. There were large parts of the cemetery roped off and they completely covered up the reflecting pool that runs down the middle of the cemetery. They covered it so they could set chairs on it and there were big screens set up for the crowds that are expected to come. It was disappointing to see it like that.
We learned that the American Battlefields and Monuments Commission (ABMC) actually owns a granite quarry in Italy and whenever a headstone is damaged or needs to be replaced they can take care of it quickly. The cemetery is in a beautiful spot next to the ocean and it is very well maintained. It is encouraging to see that those who died there are honored and remembered so well.
Tomorrow we go to the other beach the Americans landed on, Utah, and to a German cemetery.
6/3/14
Today started with a trip to see where the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions jumped into during D-Day. They were on the far western edge of the invasion. The area they jumped into was flooded by the Germans and aerial reconnaissance didn’t reveal that prior to them jumping in. It caused a lot of problems, but they still fought through and meet their objectives even with being scattered all over the place. Very few airborne units were dropped where they were supposed to be and it caused for a lot of confusion, but they still got the job done.
After seeing and learning more about where the airborne troops jumped in, we went to Utah beach. Compared to Omaha beach, Utah beach had much less casualties, but they still had heavy losses. There is an excellent museum there that I think was the best I have been to on this trip. It was also the first museum that really showed the contributions of the air forces during the invasion. At the museum they had a fully restored B-26. There are only six of those planes left in the world according to the museum. I’ve always enjoyed planes, especially the older ones and it was neat to see this one.
Our last stop for the day was a German war cemetery. The cemetery isn’t maintained by the French or German governments, but by a non-profit group from Germany. They have over 20,000 German soldiers buried in the cemetery we visited today and many more all over the world. I read that they actually have one cemetery in Tennessee and one in Iraq. To come into the cemetery you have to enter through a small single person doorway in a wall. This is to represent that each person has to face the judgement of God alone and God has the final judgment on a person. The headstones, in the shape of a cross, were small and laid flat in the ground. It’s sad to see 20,000 plus people buried in a cemetery who fought for a side that was so wrong.
Tomorrow we go to see Mont St. Michel and are attending the unveiling of a new memorial.
6/4/14
Our whole day was at Mont St. Michel. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, but it was well worth it. It was raining when we got there, but that turned out to be a good thing since it kept the crowds away. Mont St. Michel doesn’t have much to do with WW II or D-Day, but it’s one of those places that if you are near it you have to go see it.
There is an interesting story from the war that involved Mont St. Michel. The wife of a gentlemen that we meet the other day, the man who helped start the Ranger museum Grandcamp-Maisy, was a small child during WW II. She lived in Saint-Lô, which was known as “the city of ruins” after WW II because 75 percent of the city was destroyed. She was taken to Mont St. Michel along with other school children because it was safe from the damage the war was inflicting on the rest of the country. The children were led by nuns and it was over a 20 mile walk. The more I read about WW II the more stories I find like this and they never cease to amaze me.
Tomorrow we are going to a luncheon and a ceremony honoring the 29th division.
6/6/14
Today started early. We were on the bus at 0515 and went to Omaha beach where we were with veterans of the 29th division. We were all on the beach together at the exact time they hit the beach 70 years ago. It was an incredible experience to be there at the same time they were. Those men are true legends and it was an honor to meet them and be in their presence.
Later in the day we were farther down Omaha beach near the American cemetery and we could hear President Obama speaking. There was a flyover of American F-15s: when they came screaming low over the cemetery one pulled almost straight up in the air as they did the missing man formation.
After leaving Omaha beach we drove to Paris for the night and we will be flying out tomorrow morning.
This has been an incredible experience and to be able to walk the beaches and see where men of the Greatest Generation fought and died has been something I’ll never forget.
The paper in San Diego, The Union Tribune, wrote a story about our trip. You can read more about it here. It was written by John Wilkins. You can follow him on Twitter here.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this. If you like the style of this you can check out some other things I’ve written. I’ve written about a motorcycle trip I took to Yosemite on Medium and a cross country motorcycle journey on Kindle and iBooks.
If you would like to see more of my pictures from this trip you can see them here on Flickr. All the photos were taken by me with an iPhone 5. If any editing was done on any of the photos I used Instagram or Snapseed.
And lastly, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram if you’d like.
