Day 2 - They did not know it was impossible, so they just did it
Today we start the day under a blue sky. Luckily because all our visits take place outside.
After a good breakfast we first drive to Grandcamp-Maisy, the furthest point of today. This town is located between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.
The US sector of Utah Beach was the westernmost landing beach and was only added recently. The landing led by Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of former President Theodore Roosevelt, went almost without any problems. This was ironically because they landed a kilometer further than planned and there were hardly any Germans to be seen.
By the end of D-Day, about 20,000 men and 1,700 vehicles had landed on Utah Beach, with about 700 Allied dead and wounded. Utah Beach was the beach with the fewest losses.
To take this beach, the Grandcamp-Maisy gun battery that defended both Utah Beach and Omaha Beach had to be eliminated No one ever imagined that the battery would be forgotten for more than sixty years after the conquest. In 2006, a British history buff exposed the battery. The site has been left in its 'rough' condition and excavations are still under progress
We visit the bunkers and the 1.5 km trenches.
Next to Grandcamp-Maisy is Pointe du Hoc, which also defended the beaches of Utah and Omaha Beach. Pointe du Hoc is located on a cliff 30 m above the sea.
The Germans had installed cannons here to defend the beaches. Prior to the landing, the Allies had heavily bombarded Pointe du Hoc to allow them to take the cliff. The cliff capture, a difficult and arduous mission, was entrusted to the US 2nd Ranger Battalion. 225 men would land on the beach and had to destroy the guns. What the Rangers did not know is that because of the bombing, the Germans had moved the guns further inland. The Rangers reached the base of the cliff around 7 am. Using rope ladders shot up with mortars, the men managed to climb up the cliff. They eliminated the Germans and took a strategic position. The most difficult period came after the attack. The group remained isolated for two days and had to repel several German attacks. They were trapped between the bunker remains, had no food and only limited ammunition.
Only much later did some reinforcements arrive and the Germans could finally be forced back. Only half of the soldiers survived the capture. A sad death toll.
Today, seventy years after its capture, Pointe du Hoc still looks like a lunar landscape dotted with deep craters caused by the Allied bombing raids.
Bunkers are still fully or partially erect. A memorial in the shape of a needle has been erected and is built on a firing escort post. From the bunkers you have a good view of the cliffs. These Rangers didn't know that the capturing was actually impossible, they just did it.
We drive a bit east to Gold Beach, which was allotted to the British troops. The main task was the capture of Arromanches, which had been designated as the site of a Mulberry harbor. Landing at Gold Beach began at 7:25 am, an hour later than Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, which are more westerly, because the tide came in earlier. Due to the strong northwest wind, the barriers on the beach were already submerged when the commandos that were supposed to blow them up reached them. The soldiers were fired on from the bank and were unable to clear the obstacles. Twenty of the first landing crafts, loaded with tanks, sailed on mines and suffered minor to heavy damage.
Because the sea was quite rough, it was decided not to let the amphibious tank sail to the beach with its own power, but to put it ashore with the landing boats. As a result, they were not immediately available to open fire on the German positions.
The English managed to break through the German lines, supported by the Hobart's Funnies. This collection of tanks was specially designed for clearing the obstacles on the beach. The most important was the Crab, a Sherman tank converted into a flail tank that, with chains mounted on an extendable roller, could detonate mines and thus clear the minefields for the infantrymen. By midnight, some 25,000 soldiers had landed. 413 were injured and killed.
The Mulberry Port of Arromanches-les-Bains was one of two Mulberry Ports built in 1944 after the Normandy landings. This port at Arromanches-les-Bains was necessary to continue to supply the Allied troops after the invasion and to be able to land large equipment. For this it was necessary that ships with a large draft could moor. The existing seaports in Normandy were difficult to capture and were also expected to be disabled by the Germans.
The construction of the temporary harbor was started on 7 June 1944 by sinking old warships. In this way a breakwater with a total length of approximately 7 km was created. Following this, on the seaward side behind the sunken ships, so-called Phoenix caissons were sunk. These caissons had been secretly manufactured in England beforehand and each had a gun deck with anti-aircraft guns. Floating unloading quays made of steel pontoons were built in the shadow of the breakwater, which were connected to the beaches of Arromanches by moving bridges. These rectangular pontoons made of concrete and steel were provided with 30 meters long, movable, support pillars at four corners. By means of these support pillars, the pontoons could follow the tidal movements and uninterrupted unloading of men and material could be done independently of the tide.
The harbor no longer exists, but part of the caissons has remained off the coast.
We end the day at Omaha Beach, the fifth sector, the place where the fighting was most intense and which resulted in heavy Allied losses.
The Germans had prepared their defense well. There were obstacles on the beach everywhere below the high water mark and some parts of the area, especially above the high water mark, were covered with landmines. Moreover, the gently sloping beach provided an excellent shooting range for the defenders who entrenched themselves in bunkers on top of the more than thirty meters high cliffs. Initially the area was defended by a hodgepodge of troops from Poland and Russia, but just before the invasion they were replaced by the German 352nd Infantry Division. This was one of the best trained troops in the area. Still, Omaha Beach held few secrets or surprises from the explorations. However, the preliminary bombing and shelling had been sloppy and had done little damage. Of the twenty-nine Duplex Drive Sherman tanks that could float with a collar of sorts, twenty-seven were lost on landing, leaving the infantry with little fire support. The soldiers from the landing craft had to wade thirty meters through shallow water to reach the beach. According to the 1st Division War Diary, all of the division's officers and sergeants were wounded or dead within ten minutes of the landing flaps being lowered. The division was out of range and unresponsive. After an hour, the men were still on the beach, in cover from heavy machine gun fire. It was not until Brigadier General Norman Cota's landing that the troops regained some courage, and they finally succeeded in breaking through the German lines. One of the major misses in the American attack on Omaha Beach was General Bradley's refusal of the Funnies. Omaha Beach was a huge battlefield. In the first eighteen hours of the invasion, four and a half to five thousand men were killed or injured.
Up in the dunes behind Omaha Beach near Colleville-sur-Mer lies an American cemetery with mostly American soldiers who fell in Normandy.
This cemetery is on perpetual loan to the United States. 9,386 American soldiers are buried here.
One of them is Leo Murphy. When you're born with a name like that, you're not really destined for great things. But that's just what he did. A heroic act that served the higher purpose : he died on the battlefield of Normandy for our freedom. Leo is my unofficial adopted soldier and a visit to his grave is the real reason for our trip to Normandy. To me he symbolizes all those young ordinary soldiers who lost their lives here in unfamiliar territory in Europe that was far away from them.
The arrival to the cemetery is always a bit emotional. As far as the eye can see, you see nothing but white crosses. They are buried just above Omaha Beach facing the sea.
There is now a holiday feeling on the beach, screaming children play with their bucket and shovel in the sand. It's hard to believe that the sea turned red here seventy years ago from all the bloodshed. These screaming children are the symbol of hope and the future, the stake of the fierce battle that took place here. Thousands of Allied soldiers sacrificed their lives so that these children could grow up carefree in peace and freedom.
We quickly found Leo's grave. I have brought him a bouquet of flowers with roses and lilies. I also made a card for him: 'Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another. Remembering you the next 70 years.'
A grave with flowers stands out, there are not many. When I walk around a bit, I see from a distance many people coming to his grave, curious about the flowers and the card. This afternoon Leo gets a lot of visitors.
Peace was a dream for them, a reality for us. I must nevertheless come to the regrettable conclusion that a second world war has still not led to peace all over the world.
World peace will remain an utopia for our generation too. And in Europe, the Second World War has not led to general solidarity and unanimous solidarity The Balkan war is still in the not so distant past. And the euro crisis has also shown that Europe currently lives at two speeds. But what I find most incomprehensible is the victory of the far right and neo-Nazi parties in the most recent European elections. It is all too easy to point the finger at certain populations when things are not going well in the country. Feeling superior to others has never led to anything good…
He who forgets his past has no future…
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