We began the day early so we could catch low tide at Omaha Beach. We got there around 8, and the boys who came ashore would have arrived around 6. The distance they would have had to run on the hard packed sand us incredible. Some of the kids tried it and decided they would be dead. The beach is surrounded by high cliffs that made excellent gun nests for the Germans. The American bombers were worried about hitting their own men, so they dropped their bombs late, causing little damage to the German forces. It equalled a disastrous day for the Allies, but they still established a beach head. The sand was really amazing. I knew the allies had sent night swimmers to collect samples of sand, and they decided that Omaha was a good choice because it could support the weight of the tanks, but I really didn't understand it till I was walking in the beach and not sinking at all. We barely left footprints.
We drove from there to Longues-ser-Mer, the location if a German battery. Along these cliffs, the German had placed four big guns that would be used to take out Allied ships. A forward command post would have called out coordinates for the gunners to aim at.
We stopped to eat our picnic lunch in the town of Arromanches, which was part of the British sector. While we were sitting on the sea wall eating, a member of our party started talking to an elderly gentlemen who had come ashore in the artificial harbors built at that beach. He came in with the British infantry on June 15 and fought till he was wounded. He said he didn't know where he was wounded at, because they never knew where they were located, "someone would say, 'you are in the Caen district' and we'd say 'where the hell is Caen.'" After he left, there was another older gentlemen nearby, and it turned out he had been part of the British navy. He told his story, too, but I needed an ice cream, a soda, and a bathroom, all of which I found.
One of our readings was the diary of Marie Louise Osment, who's house had been commandeered by the Germans, then by the British. The house is private property today, but we went to see it. As we were standing outside and Dr. Arnesen was talking, the gates slowly opened. Everyone freaked out and started running. And older gentlemen came out and offered to let us tour the house, including her room, which is largely unchanged since her death. We'd had so much good fortune that we joked about unicorns showing up at supper, and said somebody needed to buy a lotto ticket. We paid our respects at Madame Osment's grave and headed to our next stop,which was an Abbey.
The Abbey had been used as a German headquarters during the occupation, and 21 Canadian soldiers had been captured, tortured, and executed there. We visited the small memorial and walked around the Abbey courtyard, which no longer functions as an Abbey. The Abbey Church is a library now. They had an exhibition on the liberation, but it was not open. Our luck could only go so far.
We got back to the hotel with some shopping time, and I wanted to add some information to C's Eulogy of our soldier, so we worked on that. I packed for Paris, and we met the group for dinner at Cafe L'Europe. I had pizza. The French were playing in the World Cup and they were watching it in the bar below us, so it was fun listening to the people reacting. When we got back to the hotel, all the kids worked on their eulogy, and then the adults enjoyed adult company till we all decided to go to bed.
Today's steps 16106
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