The reality of history

Sunday brought more D-Day history into reality for me. Katie and I visited the Point du Hoc, where the German soldiers had fortified and assumed was unassailable. Located in between the two American landing beaches, they were to use their guns to cover the beaches against allied assault. A crazy group of Rangers had other ideas.

 

The terrifying thing about this is that
I'm pretty sure this area was flat before the war.

I don't feel that any of the photos that I took can really express how dramatic this site is. One can read in a book, "The rangers advanced on the German bunkers, hiding in the craters from previous bombing attacks on the site" and not really comprehend what it means. These things were enormous!

I saw the sign explaining the danger of possible explosives
still existing in the soil AFTER I got out of the crater.
I had made sure to choose a well traveled one, though.

There were a number of the bunkers still in pretty decent condition that were open for people to explore. I wouldn't have wanted to live in these things, they're far too dark and cramped. But I'm sure I wouldn't want my windows and fresh air so much if I was getting bombed.

The whole site with its cliffs on the ocean was really quite beautiful. It must have been an awfully difficult climb up the steep sides for those Rangers, though.

Some of the gun installations look less bellicose and more artful than they used to, I'm sure. I can only assume the notches around the outside are for a gear apparatus for turning a very large gun used to blow people up. It looks much more peaceful than all that.

I'd hang out here.

After we walked through the whole site and marveled at the destruction, we headed over to the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. We walked through the grounds first before going through the exhibits at the visitor center. 

Statue at the Memorial.

The memorial located at the head of the cemetery is extremely well done. As well as being pleasing to the eye, it had maps on the walls detailing the events of the war in Europe, and on either side of the maps a narrative. On one side, it was in English, and the other side had the same narrative in French.

Tracking the troop movements throughout the war in Europe.

Just behind the memorial is The Garden of the Missing. Divided by military branch, and then alphabetically, this garden lists the names, jobs, ranks and provenance of each soldier that was missing in action in the region. The photo below is only a small portion of the garden, and it's pretty much solid writing on that wall of names.

The grounds there are immaculately kept, and I marveled at the detailed hand labor that much go into every marker. There is an edged square at the base of each headstone of empty soil and every one I saw was perfect. No weeds, so overgrown grass. Note that each one of these 9,000+ graves has this, and they must be edged by hand. I appreciate the work, but I'm not sad I don't have to do that piece of maintenance.

After our time marveling at the grounds, Katie and I went through the visitor center. They had computers in both languages where you could search for people buried in the cemetery, and each name in the computer had a lot of information linked about their division, what its particular tasks were, and if they had the information, about the soldier as an individual. The exhibits began with a video (in English and subtitled in French) talking about the events of the war, and really focused on a few individuals and their roles in the war. After, was a grand room full of exhibits like the one below. They really outdid themselves with the dual-language presentation, and the whole exhibit was extremely well done.

Thie one was titled Practicing. In between the English word
and its French translation, there was another related word that is the
same in both languages, tying them together. 

After the exhibits, there was a final room where the names of the fallen were read over a speaker, and in the center was this haunting tribute.

I almost lost it when I saw this.

Around the edges of the same room were these plaques telling the individual stories of those who participated in the war. Most of them died, but some of them made it home. I really enjoyed the way they presented this though. It was a very personal way to connect the fact that the soldiers in the war were in fact real people, with real families at home, and terrible things personally happened to all of them. All while you're taking these in, there are still the names of the fallen being read.

I was thoroughly impressed with both sites, but especially with the planning and execution of the exhibits at the American Cemetery. What an amazing tribute to their defense of freedom.