Normandy Sites

D-Day Sites

I seriously regret not being able to spend more time here - next time though ... right?

We started our tour on the cliffs above Arromanches, France.  There is an Arrmanches 360* Theater with a picture/music movie that puts the images of WWII into your mind and what historical events took place here.  Below the cliff in the distance is Port Winston's Artificial Harbor which is 4 miles long.  They linked these together to make a floating road where soldiers placed anti-aircraft guns on top in order to protect the port.  To give you an idea of how effective this was - within 6 days of it's operation 54,000 vehicles, 326,000 troops, and 110,000 tons of goods had crossed the English Channel successfully.  I still can't really comprehend it all.

Next Stop -- WWII Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Located above Omaha Beach 9,387 white-marble crosses and Stars of David mark an American who gave their life to free Europe on the beaches of Normandy.  It was a beautiful evening and a very moving experience.  Being so peaceful here makes it hard to imagine how much war and death were present here.

I don't know if you can see the statue in the middle of this picture but it's a soaring statue representing the spirit of American youth.

A few pictures of the gravestones (Crosses and the Stars of David)

These next three pictures are of the semi-circle Garden of the Missing.  This is where there are 1,557 names of soldiers who were never found.  The second picture shows a close up of a small metal knob next to a name indicating one whose body was eventually found (there weren't very many small metal knobs, unfortunately).

The

From here visit the beaches and Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument (we didn't have time to do this but really want to next time - it is an amazing story of what the Rangers had to go through and why)

We did, however, visit the Longues-sur-Mer Gun Battery.  This is where four German casemates (3 with guns intact) still stand today.  By the way, it is always open and FREE.  They are the only original coastal artillery guns remaining, in their original place, in the D-Day region.  These guns are HUGE!  It took 7 soldiers to work one gun (the bullet alone weighed 40 pounds).  They could hit a target 12 miles away and could be loaded and fired 6 times per minute.  You can explore all over these guns - inside and climbing all over them as well.  While climbing them we even found the hooks that were used to secure camouflage netting (which made it impossible for bombers to find them).