D-Day Landing Beaches

Wednesday 10 August

We tried to set off early as we had lots on the agenda today. Firstly the Memorial de Caen Museum containing a small snippet of information about WWI, mainly in context to how it wasn't the “War to end all Wars” and then a tonne of information about WWII and wars beyond. We stayed for 2.5 hours and still didn't see it all. 

We probably could have done without the first section about the Nazi occupation having seen a lot about that in Germany, but you learn something new each time. The second section related to the D Day landings at Normandy, was detailed but more difficult to follow and not as well laid out, but you got a good idea. At the end we watched a short film with actual footage of the landings.  

We ended up buying small book about Operation Over-Lord later in the day, just so we could read it in detail to understand the staggering operation that was undertaken.

There are so many motor-homes in France that they have dedicated parking lots at all major attractions, so we were able to have lunch at the lot outside the Caen Memorial.

After lunch, we set off to the D Day landing sites at the Normandy beaches. 

Churchill certainly was an intelligent fellow concocting a plan to built artificial ports on the beaches so troops and vehicles could easily be offloaded from ships. We stopped at Arromanches overlooking the beach code named Omaha. Many of these landing platforms and artificial harbours, which were prefabricated in the UK and sailed across the channel, are still in place as are a lot of the huge concrete pile-ons which where used as a breakwater. It really is an amazing thing to see.

To think that on D Day, the Allies landed over 150,000 men on these beaches, with the aid of 6,800 vessels, under enemy fire – it is truly staggering to imagine, and amazing to be standing here.

Onward to the American Military Cemetery which is so well presented and maintained and again dedicated parking for motor homes. In fact the entire car parking operation is run extremely well which is necessary as this is a very popular tourist site. The site is adjacent to the beach code named Utah, which together with Omaha made up the majority of the America sector of operations on D Day.

There is a large memorial containing the names of the soldiers whose bodies were not recovered, and two sections detailing the initial bombings and first landing operation followed by the push forward to recapture first Normandy and then other towns and countries occupied by the Nazis.

And then the rows and rows of white crosses, some containing names and some indicating that this person is known only to God. The Star of David is in place instead of a cross for Jewish soldiers. There are nearly 9,400 graves in this one site. 

This is a very moving place. And this in one of hundreds of war grave sites in this area.

By now it was getting late for us. We're normally in our camp by now but as we had our booking for the night we weren't too worried. We could have done without the interesting country roads the GPS took us down however. When we arrived our camp site, Camping Mount Saint Michel, we discovered it was a different place to the one we thought we'd booked. This one isn't just up the road from Mont Saint Michel, it's 7km away. Never mind. It's a very nice place with free WiFi, a huge roll of toilet paper as you walk into the toilet facility (help yourself) and a nice restaurant/bar. The facilities here and the last place are unisex, and we've encountered a bit of unisexing going on in the showers or toilets (gross). But hey, this is France and anything seems to go.

This was a full on day with lots of driving, but we saw some very interesting and memorable things and were so lucky to have a beautiful sunny day to enjoy it.

More photos here.