Normandy

Sunday, April 29th

I left Munich without too much to report. The flight was ok too, except for the woman sitting next to me. She was a little too tanned and looked like she was made of leather. She kept nodding off and snapping her head back and did this for the duration for the flight. I can’t pinpoint the reason, but it irritated the hell out of me and wanted bad things to happen to her.

The other thing about the flight was the damn frenchie pilot thought he was Maverick and kept pulling tight ass turns at low altitude and low speeds. I’m not excessively nervous on flights, but the dude seemed a little crazy to me and didn’t exactly put me at ease. At least he was funny. I think. He would come on the intercom and make his announcement (in French) and everyone would crack up. Unfortunately, my one year of college French wasn’t up to par and I missed all the good stuff.

I landed in Paris and then took the Air France bus into the city. My initial stay in Paris was short lived though, as I was only there long enough to get to the train station and over to Normandy. The bus dropped us off right near the Arc de Triomphe and I began my walk to the St. Lazare train station. I underestimated the length of the walk though and, to make things worse, it started to pour down. I eventually made it though, soaked to the bone, and a short time later I settled into my seat.

I sat and re-read the relevant parts of Stephen Ambrose’s “D-Day” to prepare for my tour the next couple of days. When we got to Caen, they announced that we had to wait for another train which was running late and needed to make a connection with us. We sat for over an hour before heading off again. The other train never did come. I should also mention what my schedule was like. I didn’t even land in Paris until after 6PM. My train didn’t depart from Paris until 9PM (which isn’t as bad as it sounds, it took about an hour and a half to actually get into Paris from the airport – with the luggage collection and all – and another half hour to walk to the train station. That left me with an hour to eat and get sorted out at the train station). The journey to Bayeux was supposed to take two and a half hours but add a one hour delay to that. By the time I actually arrived in Bayeux, it was half past midnight and there were no buses or taxis to speak of. I had to navigate using my guide book map but still had to walk to my hotel which was a little bit of a way removed from where I was. By the time I did make it to my hotel, it was well past 1AM and dark and deserted. I rang the doorbell: no response. Rang again: nothing. I walked to the next hotel over (they appeared connected) and rang there: no answer. Bayeux is a small town and even in big European cities like Munich practically shut down after 10PM so I was fucked. As I was resigning myself to sleeping outdoors somewhere and losing a night’s payment for the hotel (which I’d booked online), I noticed the door to an adjoining restaurant was cracked so I made my way in and must have created enough of a disturbance that someone actually came down and checked me in. Word.

Monday, April 30th

I had to be at a certain place at a certain time to meet up with my D-Day tour group. That means I had to wake up early and wander over to said place. Before doing that, however, I stopped in a little supermarket to buy some breakfast and water. After chowing down and heading over to Place de Quebec to meet the group and we were on our way.

Our first stop was a little known place called Angoville au Plain. Angoville was near one of the 101st Airborn Division’s drop zones and the church in the village was used as an aid station for wounded soldiers. The two medics, Kenneth Moore and Robert Wright also treated wounded citizens and even a couple of wounded Germans. They worked straight through for three days, treated over 80 wounded and only lost two. The chuch is still as it was over sixty years ago and, believe it or not, the blood stains on the pew are still visible. It was a touching human interest story and a good start to our tour. The citizens of Angoville are so grateful for what Moore and Wright did that they’ve put up some monuments and even two stained glass windows commemorating their work.

Afterwards, we headed off to St. Mere Eglise; a town made famous by many D-Day movies. We visited the paratrooper museum there and got to tour the church were Pvt. Steele landed on (and got stuck on) the steeple.

Our next stop was a short drive away, at a little hamlet called La Fiere. La Fiere was another airborn drop zone – this time for the 82nd. It was also the site of some of the heaviest casualties suffered by American troops. As a matter of fact, the cost in casualties per yard of territory won was the highest in the entire war. The battle for the bridge at La Fiere was the basis of the “last stand” bridge at the end of Saving Private Ryan.


Our next stop was Utah Beach. While we were on the beach, we received a full briefing on the assault plans and the way the battle for the beach unfolded. Afterward, we visited the museum and a couple of bunkers that are sprinkled throughout the area. I took some pics and collected a sand sample and then we were off again.

The next stop was hedgerow territory and the Pratt memorial. Pratt was a general that was killed in a glider crash – another event that was portrayed in Saving Private Ryan.

We moved on to St. Come-du-Mont and the incredible story of Joseph Beyrle. Beyrle was an ass-kicking paratrooper that had dropped in before D-Day a couple of times to help the French resistance. He did another combat jump on D-Day and completed some sabotage missions before being taken prisoner. He escaped but was captured again. He escaped again and headed east, hoping to run into the Russians. When he found them, he was so intent on killing Germans that he fought for an extended period of time with the Russian Army. In the meantime, he had been reported killed in action and his family had even held funeral services for him before Marshal Zhukov signed his papers allowing him to re-join the US Army.

The last stop on the tour was the little known town of Graignes. A force of paratroopers landed near Graignes, far away from where their actual drop zones were supposed to be. They had reports that a Waffen SS division was operating in the area so they blew up a bridge and decided to put up a fight in Graignes. The town’s citizens were asked for help and they put the matter to a vote: either they could help the Americans as liberators or refuse to cooperate knowing that an elite SS division would probably rout the small band of Americans and then punish the citizens for providing assistance. The town’s people voted unanimously to help the Americans. The paratroopers, despite their numerical disadvantage, inflicted heaving casualties against the counter-attacking Germans and managed to hold them off for a few days. After a while, however, the Germans broke the resistance forcing the few Americans that were left to retreat through a marsh, leaving behind the wounded and the citizens of Graignes. The SS, slaughtered the wounded paratroopers, the town’s two priests and many of the town’s people for good measure. The town was so badly damaged that only three building remained and after the war, the few survivors just picked up and moved their town, leaving the original Graignes as a memorial.

After that, we drove back to Bayeux and I had a chance to explore that city a little bit. I also got to see the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered cloth that’s 210 feet long, nearly a thousand years old and tells the tale of William the Conqueror’s exploits. Then, after a long couple of days, I went to sleep early to prepare for part two of my D-Day tour.