We drove the few miles from our
campground overlooking Omaha Beach to the American Cemetery high on a
bluff. The visitor center was a great museum of the D-Day Invasion.
The logistics of moving that many men and materiel over the English
Channel is staggering. Omaha Beach was the bloodiest battle of the
invasion with over 3,000 Americans killed that day.
We watched a few
film clips, including a really interesting one interviewing
Eisenhower worrying about the weather and giving the final go-ahead
to Operation Overlord. We were surprised to learn of the extent to
which the Allies worked to get the Germans to believe the invasion
would be at Calais, the shortest distance across the Chanel. They
parachuted fake men made of burlap and sand, parachuted aluminum
streamers to make the Germans believe there was a massive air attack
and used blow-up balloons that looked like tanks tricking the Germans
into thinking there was a whole army readying for the Calais
invasion. The original plan called for 3 Army division for D-Day –
it ended up being 47 divisions!
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| The Cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach |
Saving Private Ryan (starts with the
American Cemetery) and Ken Burns Band of Brothers are two of the best
films about D-Day. We will have to watch those again.
The cemetery is large and quite moving
to see all those crosses and stars. The dreary skies and threatening
rain seemed appropriate.
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| Memorial at the American Cemetery |
After lunch we drove about 20 minutes
south to Bayeux. We wanted to stay at an Aire right in the center of
town and of course, the GPS took us down the narrowest streets it
could find. Jack almost knocked out a gendarme standing on the
sidewalk with our mirrors as we passed. Luckily, the guy he was
talking to pulled him away from the curb. After all the stress of
traveling through clogged narrow streets, the Aire was completely
full. It turns out this weekend is their medieval festival – think
Renaissance Festival held throughout a genuine medieval town.
So, on to the municipal campground
about 5 minutes away. It began raining and rained steadily all
evening, so we did not get into town at all, but decided to stay dry
and read tonight.
