D-Day Beaches

Yesterday we rented a car from Paris and drove to Normandy to see the D-Day beaches invaded by Allied forces on June 6,1944. It is something I have wanted to see my entire life, but also something that I was apprehensive about at the same time. Nothing can prepare you for the eerie feeling that hangs over this stretch of beach. For many years I have seen historical footage of the horrific events of those several days. These 2 dimensional, black and white films do not prepare you for the wave of emotion that will pour over you when entering this now peaceful, beautiful coastline. To walk down the hillside from where the German snipers were pearched, across the stretch of lightly vegetated slope and then onto the vast expanse of beach, one realizes just how absolutely exposed the US forces were on Omaha beach.
I never learned from watching old footage how many small farming villages dotted the coastline and fell in the direct path of this world changing battle. Many buildings remain with signs of bullet holes still visible. There are also post war buildings sprinkled in where, undoubtedly, old buildings had been bombed. This is a very beautiful farming area, with dairy cattle, cultivated fields, gently rolling hills and apple orchards. It is a true blessing that time can wash away most of the visible scars of that war. We also saw Point Du Hoc, which was the site of a major German gun battery that had to be taken out. As you Aggies know, this was the mission for Rudder's Rangers led by Gen. Earl Rudder. The assent was up a 95 ft vertical cliff with enemy firing down and dropping granades. Of the 229 that attempted the assent, 90 men survived. General Rudder, from Brady, Texas, went on to become President of Texas A&M University and made changes that took A&M College to the premier University in the State of Texas.

We went to the US Cemetery, which is an incredible memorial to over 10,000 men that gave their lives for freedom during that week in June, 1944. The introductory film and many of the exhibits in the memorial building are focused on the lives of several of the service men, which puts the experience on a very personal level and makes the experience even more emotional. Letters they wrote back home the day before the beach landing are read and you are shown interviews with surviving family members, all of which makes you fully realize they were college kids, brothers, sons, husbands and fathers with no comprehension of what lie ahead. Then we went out to the gravesites and saw row after row after row of white marble crosses and Stars of David as far as the eye can see. You get the sense that these boys and men are truely at peace now. The sounds of the gunfire, bombs and cries for help have been silenced.
It is a place everyone should visit if you have the chance.
John