War

As promised, here are some of our pictures from our time in Normandy, France.  We really enjoyed seeing the locations where a major piece of history took place.  Angela and I have been reading about World War II for a long time and being in the same places where men fought and died for their country really hit home for us.

Angela and I in front of the Caen WWII Memorial Museum.  We spent over 7.5 hours here and it was a great start to our time in Normandy.

We really liked the old posters from both sides of the fight.

We mentioned this plaque in our previous post.  We are probably biased, but thought this was poorly phrased by the French.

Angela at Gold Beach near Arromanches.  That is a piece of the old makeshift port (Mulberry) in the background that the Allies used to land so much equipment necessary for the push inland on and after D-Day.

A Cannon at Gold Beach.

We visited some Nazi fortifications above Gold and Omaha Beach at Longues-Sur-Mer.

These were well hidden gun placements.

This is the lookout at Longues-Sur-Mer that communicated to the guns where to shoot.

We visited the American WWII Cemetary above Omaha Beach as well.  We spent a lot of time there.

We hiked down to Omaha Beach from the cemetary.

Omaha Beach.  It is a huge beach and it is hard to imagine how many men had to cross it at low tide.

Angela and Luke at Omaha Beach.

Our last stop that day was at Point Du Hoc.  This is the monument to the Rangers that had to climb the steep cliff to take the placement that overlooked both Omaha and Utah Beaches.

The Cliffs were very steep and we read about how difficult it was to climb up amid enemy fire.

Point Du Hoc was one of the most bombed fortifications in Normandy and all the craters are still there.  Most of them were deeper than both Angela and I put together.  I can't imagine being a German at this fortification.  So many craters and all of them so deep.  It must have been a nightmare.

This is the primary lookout on the point.  The monument below represents a Ranger Dagger, and is sticking in the top of the above fortification/lookout.

The Ranger Monument.

On our 4th day in Normandy, we took a day trip to Mont St. Michel, a small island with a huge Mideval Church and town on it.

The view on the road to the island.

You actually can't really call it an island these days because most of the time it is just a mud flat.  We saw a lot of people walking between the small islands across the mud.  They seemed to be having a great time.

That is the big Church structure in the background on Mont St. Michel.

This is part of the little town on the island.

It was really a pretty cool place.

We spent our last full day in Normandy back on the "war path".  We headed to Ste. Mere Eglise on the Penninsula where many of the Airborne troops landed and fought Germans the night before D-Day.  One Paratrooper landed on the corner of this church and they put a parachute up there in recent years to commemorate it.  Check out the movie "The Longest Day", which highlights the battles here.

A Tank at the Airborne Museum in Ste. Mere Eglise.

We loved the Museums in the area that showed actual equipment from the troops.

And we always like the cool posters from the war days.

At the Airborne Museum in Ste. Mere Eglise.

Ste. Mere Eglise

Outside of St Marie Dumont we found this memorial of the actions of Easy Company (as seen in "Band of Brothers" from HBO) when taking the guns at Brecourt Manor.  We drove right next to the Manor.

We looked all around St. Marie Dumont, where this picture was taken.  Easy Company helped to take this town.

St. Marie Dumont held a lot of history for the war, and a lot of it surrounded this church in the very center.

A tank at Utah Beach.

Utah Beach was pretty incredible as well.  Several Monuments were dedicated to the different troops that helped make the landing a success.

Utah Beach was not as long or as wide as Omaha (from what we saw), but still must have been incredibly challenging for the landing of so many Americans.

Angela at Utah Beach.

We went to this small Museum (Dead Man's Corner Museum).  We were only there for a little while, but it had some very interesting things in it.  This spot was where some major fighting took place on the road to Carentan.  Carentan had to be taken to unite the 2 American Beach Heads (Utah and Omaha).

I guess a bunch of American soldiers signed this Nazi flag.

Our last stop of the last day (before heading back to our hotel in Bayeux) was back at Omaha Beach.  Luke is standing on a washed up section of a Mulberry (temporary Harbor) at the West end of the beach.

Hotel Casino at the West end of Omaha Beach.

There were several monuments on Omaha Beach.  We appreciated them all.

This is the big church in Bayeux where our Hotel was.  It was untouched during the war it sounds like.

Bayeux was a classic Norman town.  We were really glad we got to stay there.

Bayeux, France.