Our guided tour began at the German bunkers overlooking what was dubbed Omaha beach for the invasion.
Several still house guns used during D-Day.
Omaha beach is narrow, much of the large rocks here being added after WWII to stop beach erosion. As you’ll see in a later photo, Utah beach is much wider.
Atop a bluff overlooking the English Channel and the long stretch of Omaha beach is a massive cemetery housing the remains of many U.S. soldiers killed in the D-Day invasion.
It’s a beautifully and immaculately maintained cemetery maintained by the French in thanks for the U.S. forces’ help in liberating the country.
Further to the north, but still along the stretch of beach known as Omaha on D-Day, is the small village of St. Laurent Sur Mer. Here several large ships were scuttled to create a temporary harbor, known as a Mulberry harbor, for landing ships carrying equipment and cargo to support the invasion. A second Mulberry harbor was created at Gold Beach in the British sector. Each could accommodate about 7,000 tons of supplies moved to shore per day.
Up the hill from St. Laurent are the remnants of German gun batteries and bunkers that housed the troops to man the guns.
The thick cement bunkers built into the hill here housed German troops. Our guide said many were older men, often from Eastern Europe, who had been conscripted after Germany invaded Poland and surrounding countries. He made the point that few were elite troops.
Looking north from Omaha Beach’s hillsides you can see the cliffs that soldiers using grappling hooks had to scale to move inland and take control of German bunkers and weapons.
This view is from atop a German bunker overlooking the beaches’ cliffs.
The bunker itself and the thin slit the Germans could use to observe the ships and troops headed their way.
Remember the scene from the movie, The Longest Day, where the German officer is looking out to the English Channel and sees nothing but ship after ship spread across the horizon heading his way. This is his view.
St. Mere Eglise certainly is touristy now with museums and restaurants catering to D-Day tour groups. But the town’s ancient church and the huge square surrounding it remain. A parachute is posed on the church’s tower representing that of John Steele (Red Buttons in the Longest Day movie) the paratrooper who landed there on the early hours of D-Day. He was captured, but later escaped the Germans. Incidentally, our guide said Steele actually was stuck on the opposite side of the church, but this works better for tourists taking photos!
One of the D-Day gliders rests inside a museum adjacent to the square in St. Mere Eglise.
From St. Mere Eglise the Allied troops moved inland and had to fight a battle to take a bridge here at La Fiere. They needed to secure the bridge over a narrow stream in dairy country, so troops, equipment and supplies could move inland to secure the area.
A few miles further up the coast are the wide, flat beaches designated Utah Beach on D-Day. The soldiers landing here received less resistance than at bloody Omaha Beach and were led by Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who is buried in the veterans’ cemetery that we visited earlier near Omaha Beach.
This break in the sand dunes at Utah Beach was where Roosevelt led the U.S. troops inland to successfully breach the German defenses and rapidly take control of the area. It was about a mile from where they were supposed to land, but reportedly Roosevelt told his aides and officers, “We’ll start the war from right here.” Roosevelt, 56, died of a heart attack about a month after the invasion.
A monument to the U.S. and French troops at Utah Beach.
Just a few miles inland is this now rarely used church where two U.S. medics treated casualties from both sides, and villagers hurt during the U.S. invasion on D-Day and shortly thereafter.
Our guide said fighting went on right outside the church, but no troops from either side invaded or disturbed the interior, letting the medics treat the injured as they lay on pews. Here one stained by a soldier’s blood still remains. Many years later one of the medics returned to the village and met a survivor, a young boy from the village, whom he had treated.
Tourists find many ways to explore and view the Normandy beaches. Here one circles over Utah beach in a small helicopter.
Further inland is the town of Bayeux, now full of restaurants, bed and breakfast inns and its famous, huge medieval tapestry. Much of its downtown and cathedral (beautiful at night) were spared as U.S. and British military engineers quickly designed and built a bypass (ring road) around the town as the tanks could not fit between the buildings on its narrow streets. Our guide told us this was the first bypass built around a city in France.