Woodhaven Ramblings: The Longest Day

As far as I know, nobody in my family was involved in D-Day on June 6, 1944. The closet possibility was my grandfather on my dad’s side. He was in the Navy at the time and was just 21 years old. But he was hanging out on a destroyer in the Pacific Ocean when the tide almost literally turned in World War II on the other side of the world.

Today – on the summer solstice, literally the longest day – Rob and I visited the beaches of Normandy, France. We docked in a town called Le Havre about 2 hours away. The port city is the second largest and busiest in France (Marseilles gets top honors), and it was entirely rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s since it was essentially flattened during WWII.

A division of Siemens is located at the Le Havre port.
They manufacture and export windmill blades.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Normandy.

A few weeks ago while at sea, I watched the D-Day movie “The Longest Day” to refresh my memory. By all accounts, the John Wayne/Henry Fonda classic is one of the most authentic depictions of the day that was both tragic and victorious. Today I was struck seeing geography, topography, and wartime artifacts that looked familiar from the movie but, more importantly, were authentic and untouched except by time.

Other than the vacation beach rentals, these
cliffs are what the soldiers had to scale after
landing on the beaches.

A crater from a mortar. The landscape was
peppered with them.

A German bunker at Pointe du Hoc that
was critical for the Allies to take out
of commission. They were stunned to
find it unoccupied and unarmed.

It felt heavy and creepy to have this view
from inside the bunker.

I saw a number of these jeeps motoring
around the area. I have no idea if they were
personal cars or tours.

Artifacts in a museum. It is still very common
for locals to find remnants of the war.

We spent most of our time on Omaha Beach – one of the two beaches that the Americans landed on (the other was Utah Beach – both named on the fly based on where a couple of proximate soldiers said they were from). The two beaches take up quite a bit of coastline – about 15 miles. Utah Beach saw about 200 casualties on D-Day; “Bloody Omaha” saw nearly 3,000.

Standing at Pointe du Hoc looking west towards
Utah Beach.

Standing at Pointe du Hoc looking east towards
Omaha Beach.

We didn’t see the beaches stormed by the British troops (Gold, Juno, and Sword – all named for fish, with Juno replacing Jelly since that name was far too cheerful). Instead, we spent time at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial where over 9,000 bodies are buried, not all of them identified.

Now is probably a good time for a map.

Part of the wall listing the 304 names of
military personnel who are missing in
action as a part of Operation Overlord
(the codename for the Battle of Normandy)

View of Omaha Beach from the Cemetary

Most American military people buried here were killed on
D-Day or in the battle that followed. Others who died
during the ensuing fighting during WWII are also
buried here at the choice of their families.

Most of the buried have Christian
crosses as headstones. There are 151 Jewish
Stars of David. No other religions
were recognized at the time.

Unidentified bodies have markers that read
"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"
There are 304 of these headstones.

I was surprised to learn that the Cemetery is considered American land. It was given to the United States by France in honor of the American role and losses on D-Day, and to allow proper commemoration and memorialization of the area. There’s some nitpicky legal stuff, but the gist is, for a brief time today, we were back in the good ol’ US of A.

Rob and I were two of only three Americans on our tour of 14. Since our ship is predominantly Australian, today’s Normandy tours were uncharacteristically small since most Normandy tourists are American, British, or Canadian. Most of my Aussie cruise-mates melted in Paris instead (heatwave currently hitting most of France, except, blessedly, Normandy).

Feelings of pride, patriotism, and respect swelled as I walked through the cemetery. I took photos, I stared at the seemingly endless rows of marble crosses, and I tried to understand what had happened on the ground I was standing on.

Then – as part of a nearby ceremony – the United States National Anthem started playing, followed by Taps. As the evocative songs played, I stopped, stared at the two American flags lightly billowing at the front of the cemetery, put my hand over my heart, and silently honored the lives that had been sacrificed for freedom and peace. But to be honest, I still didn’t really understand.

Omaha Beach was very strange.

The beach itself is lovely. The tide was out, so it was an impressively wide, flat, yellow swath of sand that stretched for about 5 miles. The cliffs above were beautiful limestone covered with green grasses, and the waves at the shoreline looked calm and inviting.

It really is a beautiful beach.

So it should not have surprised me that families were making sandcastles and couples were having picnics and dogs were chasing balls on Omaha Beach.

But it did.

The beach felt sacred. Many lives ended on that sand with horrible sounds and too much blood and survivors witnessing things they likely never talked about. Seeing the beach and the surrounding area now used as a sunny vacation destination and weekend getaway for Parisians jarred me.

But then I listened more closely. I heard people speaking English. Others were speaking French. A family was speaking German. All happily, all freely, all without fear of one another.

Maybe that – that shared freedom and carefree enjoyment of a beautiful sunny day on a beach – was the very best way to honor the land and lives sacrificed at Normandy.

Maybe I’m starting to understand.

I personally would have a hard time
walking past this on my way to set
up a beach umbrella.

"Omaha Beach Hotel & Golf"
It just sounds wrong.

The beach is right behind me. There had been homes
and structures lining the beach, but the Germans
destroyed them long before the Allies showed up.
These are now primarily vacation rentals.