Brian and I spent the uneventful flight to Paris reading, attempting to sleep, and watching a movie. Sleeping was possible thanks to the bulkhead seats we impulsively purchased at the last minute. Dad made the long trek to the back of the plane from first class to check on us. Once.
Upon arrival we successfully navigated Charles de Gaulle Airport, got our rental car, and headed out to Bayeux, in Normandy, soaking in the perfect 60 degree weather as we went. We didn't get lost a single time on our way to Bayeux and arrived at our hotel/cafe/bar, pictured below, in about 3 hours.
After a quick rest, we started touring the area using Brian's well-conceived itinerary. I rode shotgun and navigated with our Normandy battlemap. Dad sat in the back and took pictures.
Our first stop was Saint Mere Eglise, a small village in Normandy into which the 82nd Airborne Division parachuted the night before D-Day. They engaged in fierce fighting with the Germans and eventually secured the town. The town was made famous in the movie The Longest Day, in which Red Buttons plays the soldier whose parachute got caught on the church tower (true story). He hung there throughout the fight, playing dead. Eventually the Germans figured out he was alive and captured him. He escaped the next day. The town keeps a replica of an American airborne soldier hanging from its church tower still today. It is pictured below, along with other photos from the town's D-Day museum.
Our rental car:
After a decadent meal in Bayeux we went to bed early and got ready to do some serious touring the next morning.
Stop 1: German artillery battery at Longues sur Mer. Four huge guns like the one my dad is standing beside in the photo below make up the Longues sur Mer artillery battery.
The Wermacht fired the guns on D-Day. Eventually the allies captured them and they still stand today. Here is the view down the coast, looking towards Omaha Beach, from the guns:
Stop 2: Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial and Omaha Beach
If you've seen Saving Private Ryan then you've seen the American Cemetery at Colleville.
More than 9,000 American soldiers are buried here. Row after row after row of white crosses was one of the most moving sights I have ever seen.
The cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, the landing site with the most vicious fighting the Americans faced. After walking down to the beach from the top of the bluff, we understood why this stretch of beach was so treacherous.
The walkway down to the beach:
Below is the view from the beach looking up at the incredibly high bluff that the Americans had to scale that morning. It was a hard enough climb on the paved footpath. It was hard to imagine how anyone made it up that hill in the face of the entrenched German defenders who had pre-sighted every inch of the beach with machine guns and artillery. Incomprehensible bravery.
Stop 3: Pointe du Hoc
Overlooking the western end of Omaha Beach is a sheer cliff on top of which German artillery covered the length of Omaha Beach to the east and Utah Beach to the west. After an enormous barrage from battleships in the English Channel the morning of D-Day, a team of US Army Rangers scaled the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc with rope ladders as German defenders fired down on them and dropped grenades (again, incomprehensible bravery). The Rangers took the German position and, isolated, held off a series of German counter attacks for two days before linking up with the rest of the invasion force. We thought we'd take a look.
The view from the top of the cliff:
Brian stands in one of the craters created by the Allied naval barrage:
A view of several craters created by the naval barrage:
Stop 4: The Road between Caen and Falaise
We devoted the afternoon to driving the road between Caen and Falaise. This is the area in which Brian's grandfather, Jack Lawlor, was shot down on his 35th mission (and final...after 35 missions he would have been done) as a tailgunner in a B-17 bomber on August 7th 1944. Half of the soldiers on his plane landed behind British lines, and the other half landed behind German lines. He was in the unlucky half. He was hit in the foot with shrapnel during his fall to the earth and was captured by German troops.
He was a prisoner of war for 9 months, during which time he traveled to Paris, Germany and ultimately Poland as a guest of the German army. During the 1945 winter he participated in the "death march" during which the Germans, squeezed then by the U.S. and British to the west and the advancing Russian army to the east, attempted to unburden themselves of prisoners by forced marches during which the POWs were barely fed. Staff Sergeant Lawlor weighed less than 100 pounds when he was freed in May 1945.
Surveying this stretch of land made the trip to Normandy personal. It was not only about learning our country's history; it was now about family.
Here is the general area into which he parachuted (looking much more serene than it must have looked in August 1944):
Along this stretch of road, we happened upon a cemetery in which Polish soldiers fighting with the allies were buried:
Sunday in Bayeux
After this long day of touring, we returned to Bayeux for dinner in a quaint French bistro of which we unfortunately took no pictures.
Sunday morning we went to mass at the magnificent Bayeux Cathedral, of which we also somehow inexplicably failed to take pictures. As luck would have it, we wound up attending mass on confirmation Sunday. Several priests and the bishop were in attendance and the cathedral was full of life. Though the building itself was centuries old, the parishioners and the service itself were both young and vibrant. Even though the whole service was in French, we felt like we were part of something special.
After the service we said goodbye to my dad, who had been a fantastic travel companion, and headed off on our 6 hour drive to Burgundy. With a quarter tank of gas. Adventures ensued. More to come.
I share authorship credit with Brian on this one.
3 comments:
Seriously fascinating :) Can't wait to read the rest...definitely makes a difference when personal history is involved!
My Dad also weighed so little that his father could put his hands around his waist. He was there at the same time as your grandfather. Also was a POW for 9 months in Stalag 7-A. He was in the Army's 10th Red Diamonds. And he was my hero.
Wow, Samantha! What an amazing chronicle! Thank you so much for sharing. Feels like I went!
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