Monday, July 7: France, Pointe du Hoc and Utah Beach

We drove a short way up the Coast to Pointe Du Hoc, about midway between Omaha and Utah Beaches to see the monument to the Army Rangers who scaled the 100' cliffs here on D-Day. The grounds, pockmarked with craters from the bombings now belong to the United States. The German concrete bunkers and gun emplacements are still here that were trained on both Omaha and Utah beaches, each about 10 miles away.

Bunker at Pointe du Hoc

Beach and cliffs the Rangers Scaled on D-Day

A fabulous small visitor center told the story of how the Rangers scaled the cliffs using hanging rope ladders with the enemy shooting down on them. Once they gained the top of the cliffs, they fought off counter-attacks for two days until fellow Rangers could relieve them. Of the 225 men, 81 were killed, 58 were wounded. Had the Rangers not disabled the artillery, many more lives would have been taken by those guns on D-Day. Friday Night Trivia folks: can someone share the blog address (The-Pittstop.blogspot.com) with Tony. As a former Army Ranger, I am sure he knows much more than I do about this history, but he might be interested in the photos.)

These bunkers were part of Germany's "Atlantic Wall"

Foundation for Gun Emplacement

Steel reinforced German bunker

Utah Beach

After lunch we drove ½ hour through farmland and small villages up the coast to Utah Beach. We walked out to the shore and visited the monuments for all the branches of the services that participated on D-Day.

Then we headed inland a bit to Sainte Mere Eglise, one of the locations where paratrooopers were dropped behind enemy lines the night before D-Day. 

One of the many monuments to the different D-Day armed services 

We found an Aire right across the street from the museum. We paid the 10 Euro at the kiosk machine and settled in for the evening. We had appetizers outside, but clouds moved in, the wind kicked up and we headed inside for dinner, some reading and Rummy. Jack is desperate to redeem himself since his score at the end of the game last evening was -325.