Visiting the D-Day beaches part 1: Utah and Omaha Beach

The weather in Normandy wasn't exactly always very attractive and we spent several cold grey windy days.  But that seems very appropriate weather to visit some D-Day invasion beaches.  While being located ourselves at Sword Beach (the most Eastern sector), we drove 1h15 up to Utah beach to visit the two most Western invasion beaches, taken by the American troops on June 6th 1944. 


Utah Beach: 

The Beach
On the Contentin peninsula, in front of a large swamp area extra inundated by the Germans, is the zone nicknamed "Utah beach". (all invasion beaches are code names unrelated with their true geographical French names and all are sectors usually holding multiple kms of land and towns). 

We first walked around on the beach itself, where I imagined on this grey day the hundreds of battleship rising at the horizon early in the morning,  the landing boats approaching the beach under fire, the seasick men on board in the waves, knowing they'd unload and run towards the war for which so far they had only practised ...but now it was all starting.  They were running towards the war with no way back.  

This sandy beach that looks no different from so many where you simply want to come and enjoy some sun, salt water and build some sandcastles. 

In Utah beach the resistance was relatively low and the first landing of the first battalions only lost 15 men. 

Up in the dunes and in front of the dunes are bunkers and memorials for many of the army bands participating in the landing and the government instances.  Flags are waving and everyone visits and reads solemnly in silence. 

Utah Beach Museum

In the museum you get the history of the operation Overlord , the geographical impact, the materials used (type of boats, tanks, planes, ...) as well as life of soldiers, their equipement , ransions etc   and that of the citizens under occupation. 

For the children there was a little task book available but only in French. In the massive displays were they had to search for the requested info, there were no seperate signs to highlight what they needed or to explain something in a more easy way. As a result, it was impossible to do any of the quizzes on their own. That was a pity. 

There are a lot of materials to view, including tanks and a boat and even a full plane. The plane is visible in a side hangar of the museum which has been constructed exactly like the quick temporary airports that had to be constructed in claimed Normandy land to enable supports to be flown in.  These prefab modular airports were all developped beforehand during the war. Pretty interesting aspects that were new to me. 

All planes participating in the operations of D-day (thousands!! ) were painted in the last 2 days with black and white stripes on the wings to be recognised as "friendly" air traffic. Most were done by volunteers and simple brushes and brooms (and messy stripes) and this alone was a huge logistic effort with an unimaginable amount of paint. 

There is a bomb for each mission this plane has taken.

At the end there was also a lot of attention to the battle of the hedges where these American soldiers still had to fight for weeks in a bloody battle to win meter per meter where behind every hedge they could be ambushed. Quite interesting when we had to drive all the way back around the marshland along the narrow countryroads aligned with high hedges and scattered with memorials. 

Omaha Beach

Pointe du Hoc

In Omaha beach we stopped at the Pointe du Hoc, the peninsula rock cliffs that sits out of the bay with a German battery on top that could harm the invasion both at Utah beach in the west as Omaha beach in the east. 
So troopers were sent with a special mission as to gain control over the battery asap in the morning of June 6th to protect the success of the entire operation. They had trained especially by rope climbing over cliffs etc. 

On June 6th fortunately only 2 of the planned 6 casemates had been finished by the Germans so they were more vulnerable to the bombings that had happened that night.  The entire landscape is still scarred clearly by the bombings.  The most dangerous canon had been moved inland by the Germans the day before. The Americans managed in the morning to conquer the position but not after significant losses (also they had drifted off by the boats and had to walk a mile under fire to arrive first at the pointe du hoc itself). But they succeeded to take over this strategic point. 

The infocenter at the Pointe Du Hoc was currently closed because this is American territory but the Americans are not allowed to check the sanitary pass which is mandatory to go into inside buildings at this point of the Corona epidemic in France.  (I guess a GDPR authorisation issue?)

The Normandy American cemetery and memorial

I had visited Normandy and some of the D-Day beaches with a friend in 2009 from east to west and in the evening we had finished by visiting the Normandy American cemetary and memorial by sunset. I remembered the vastness of the cemetary but also the solemness when we had witnessed the lowering of the American flags in a lonely ceremony in the evening.

I was confused when we pulled up in a major parking lot full of parking American stewards strictly guiding us to a spot to take and to walk in a line of people among the tree avenue towards the cemetary. Wow so busy, so many people!! 

Also here the info center (that I couldn't remember) was closed because of the Americans not being allowed to check the citizen's sanitary pass. 

Behind the info center is an infinity pond that fits the solitude that this place should have. 

Along long walkways you can walk above the cliffs with on one side the sea and Omaha beach below and on the other side the many sectors that hold the 9300 American graves. 

The chapel closed

The impressive memorial

The bare crosses without flowers (unlike the Commonwealth graveyards) that yet had to be cut manually by scissor as we saw around each cross. 

Omaha Beach - Secteur Charlie (Vierville -sur-Mer)

Arromanches - The artificial harbour (and view from 360° panorama)

Our last stop in the Omaha sector was Arromanches . In this beach town the Allied troops had constructed an artificial harbour by an entire series of floating pontoons and specially engineered modular bridges that were unrolled so that all the troops equipment could come on land. 

We couldn't find any parking spot downtown, so we drove up the cliffs to the 360° panorama and its paying parking lot. We didn't visit the panorama inside, but enjoyed the view from there.

I was quite touched by the artwork there. Depending on from your angle, you could see the artwork or you looked through it. It felt very real, full of movement.  One depicted a veteran who also had a more recent veteran sculpture and his current pictures. 

We walked down a very steep road to the village down below where we viewed the remainders of the artificial harbour right there on the beach.