Normandy Remembered May it never happen again

Unlike the light-hearted Paris blog posting, this blog will be shorter and reflective. The one-day bus ride to the Normandy beaches evoked powerful sadness in us on the true cost of war. Normandy are only two and half hours away from Paris with lots of beautiful French countryside and small towns in between.

Our day started on the bus passing vibrant farm fields of yellow flowers. The fields were covered with a plant called ‘rapeseed’ or ‘oil seed rape,’ which is grown for its oil-rich seeds.

In the US, edible rapeseed oil is known as Canola oil. Rapeseed plants provide most of the world’s supply of vegetables oil, along with soybean and olive oil. It also has numerous industrial uses worldwide.

Before reaching Normandy, we visited the Romillyn cider farm for cider tasting. The Romillyn orchards are a family-owned cider-producing business based behind the German War Cemetery in La Cambe, France.

This 85-acre farm that grows Heritage apples is over 1,000 years old, dating back to the 9th century when Emperor Charlemagne commanded the farmers of France to plant apple orchards. We were served by Jeanette Romillyn, who gave us a brief history of their famous family farm.

The cider we sampled is not the fresh apple cider we would sample at a US apple farm. They served us Pommeau, a Calvados apple cider that is fermented, distilled and aged in oak barrels and distilled in order to be granted the nomenclature of Calvados. Calvados brandy alcohol levels are generally around 16-18%.

Although, it was very tempting to buy a bottle or two, after a few generous samples, the cost of shipping a bottle was more than the cost of that bottle. The unpleasant thought of carrying heavy bottles for the rest of our trip prevailed. We just tasted this divine liquid. It may have prepared us for what we were about to experience.

Normandy Beach and D-Day (codename for the invasion) represent the Allied forces’ mission to liberate France and, ultimately, to end World War II. This 50-mile stretch of beaches and the young men who fought there were critical to the overall outcome of WWII when the Allied forces launched the massive invasion of France on June 6, 1944. This invasion was the largest and most complex airborne and amphibious military operation of all time. Over 156,000 troops from American, British, Canadian and other Allied forces arrived by land, sea, and air on the coast of Normandy.

June 6th of 2024 will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. A day we should never forget.

The American flag was flying at the cemetery at Normandy Beach, representing the gratitude French people have for Americans liberating their country in 1944.

A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself, including 2,501 Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy, 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle — and especially Allied bombings of Nazi-occupied French villages and cities — killed around 20,000 French civilians. While these are just numbers — seeing these beaches and hearing how Allied leaders set a daring plan in action then sent thousands of their countries’ young men to execute it, brought the reality of the cost of war home.

A map of the five different Normandy beaches during the D-Day invasion. The red arrows indicate where U.S. troops landed, blue were British and green were Canadian troops.

Our first stop on a cold and very windy day on Normandy’s beaches was Utah Beach where 23,000 troops landed. In 1944, the troops endured rough seas that made it difficult to swim and stay afloat, especially with heavy equipment. Those approaching land were forced to wade through waist-deep water with heavy packs while being fired upon by German guns.

We met several veterans while in France, who were there honoring their forefathers that had taken part in the invasion. This bronze statue of soldiers charging off of Higgins boat onto Omaha beach was a powerful image of the courage it took that day.

This is Omaha beach at low tide which is when the invasion took place. The clouds overhead appeared to us as a white dove of peace over this calm beach where so many lives were lost on June 6th - 8th 1944.

This is Point de Hoc where 225 brave Canadian rangers scaled the cliffs to silence the large German guns. As the troops were gunned down, more determined soldiers scaled the cliffs and took their places to continue the attack. Only 75 survived to continue fighting.

The upper photo is what is left of a reinforced German bunker. The blacken ceiling of the bunker shows the aftermath of a grenade explosion killing all inside. Hitler’s followers began building the series of bunkers as early as 1939. The photo on the left is where the four Normandy bunkers were located interconnected by tunnels. These bunkers (along with landmines and beach and water obstacles) were part of the “Atlantic Wall” completed by German forces along 2,400 miles of French beaches in anticipation of an Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

The photo above shows one of four German guns at Pont de Hoc that the Allied troops had to capture and neutralize to minimize casualties on the beaches. The photo in the left shows a 10-foot deep bomb crater, that is now, ironically, growing wildflowers.

This is Omaha Beach at low tide showing the 300 yards of open beach that the invading troops had to cross under heavy machine gun and artillery fire. Over 50 percent of the first wave of soldiers were killed in the first 15 minutes of the landing.

We also visited the Utah Beach Landing Museum and saw many stark reminders of how an authoritarian dictator could assemble a following that invaded multiple countries and exacted genocide on six million Jews and millions of other victims. The following photo shows a dress uniform of a German officer, Lieutenant Werner Nahde, who was captured during the first day of D-Day.

The most disquieting symbol in the museum was a Nazi flag, taken from a sunken German submarine in March, 1944. To us, this represented the horrendous carnage inflicted on Europe and its Allies by Hitler and the Nazi regime.

The invasion was also fought with tanks and aerial forces. The B-29 bomber, “Dinah Might,” supported the Allied invasion from the air on D-Day while other aircrafts dropped troops behind enemy lines to support the sea assault.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. The memorial honors American troops who died in the D-Day invasion. Seeing nearly 10,000 white crosses where each represents a fallen American man was an emotional experience.

A German cemetery in La Camba where 21,400 German soldiers are buried is marked with flat marker stones and few dark crosses. There are over 80,000 German soldiers’ graves buried in Normandy.

The peacefulness of this scene was a sharp contrast to the stories of death and destruction that we experienced at the Normandy beaches.

Gratitude for Americans and the Allied forces is still apparent in France. We had lunch in a nearby fishing village of Port de Grandcamp-Maisy on the English Channel. Even though 20,000 French civilians were killed during the invasion, there were many American flags and other signs of appreciation for liberation from the German occupation. This included a monument honoring the brave American soldiers in this village.

Lessons Learned

Lesson 1. It is one thing to hear casualty numbers and see war movies like The Longest Day and Private Ryan, but another to see the huge human loss of life in a sea of white crosses.

Lesson 2. The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial of Colleville sur Mer will make you proud to be an American. It will remind you that freedom is not free.

Lesson 3. It must not ever happen again.

How can we ensure that we never let our children and their children forget about what, why and how World War II happened? How do we help them understand how history can repeat itself if we blindly follow an evil, power-hungry, self-absorbed leader? This is a lesson we have yet to learn.

Appreciate