The Dreadful Day - D-Day

Our trip didn’t start off so good, but after being bumped from the first plane, having to argue with Hertz rental agency, having to get lost at least twice in Paris and once in Caen, the trip started to unfold. We are now staying in this adorable european hotel off the coast of France. Of course, after it takes you a bit back because it is nothing like US hotels, but once you get to know the people, the beautiful view and knowing you are sitting in France, it is not so bad.

We woke up from a very long slumber to an absolute gorgeous day to take a tour of D-Day. Our hotel was kind enough to help us make reservations and off to the Memorial Museum of D-Day. The museum is huge, but the feeling of comfort and gratitude from the french to the US is overwhelming. We took 1 1/2 hours to tour the museum and just dented. If you go, you must at least spend 5 hours to enjoy everything in there, it is just way too big. Then Gary and I, because of last minute reservations, were put in separate tour buses, which not that we were trying to ignore each other, but after the previous days traveling it was a welcome relief of just being separate for a little while.

The first beach, I first realized I was way over my head in exactly the little I knew of World War II and D-Day. The logistics what the US did along with Canada and the UK, was totally amazing.

Here is the beach where they brought in an immense amount of equipment to build up a bay for them to access in calm waters. The logistics I never knew and it was amazing.

The second beach we looked at the German complexity that I also didn’t realize, of how much they built up to fortify the beach, unbelievable

Here is the American Grave and Memorial and Omaha Beach. I thought I was the only one really moved by this, but so many other Americans had mentioned the same overwhelming feelings of knowing the sacrifice. This alone was well worth seeing.

Third Beach was also the Omaha Beach and the bloodiest beach. Maybe I was imagining things, but I realized that the sand had turned a coral versus the other beaches. As my husband asked, do you really think the blood of all those soldiers change the color of the sand. I would hope so for at least the sacrifice that all those young men made.

Here is one of the German's artillary holes. They made hundreds of these in the cliffs.

Yes, you could say, me tired, and cold!!!
The fourth Beach was where a multitude of rangers came scaling over the cliff to take it from the Germans. So many died.

Here is where the French left the land the way the US bombed it. Huge craters.