Today is D-day

We watched the most hilarious movie last night on the telly – a real French farce from the ‘60’s which basically involved a James Bond lookalike and his gorgeous sidekick having adventures in Brazil after their maniacal Japanese pilot jumped from the plane cackling insanely and they crash landed in the jungle.  Lucky he had a gun and could shoot (and then roast unskinned) a crocodile for their dinner.  I have not laughed so much in years – we both had tears streaming down our faces. 

Another yummy breakfast this morning and then said goodbye with reluctance to our lovely hotel room with its deep luxurious bath and its brutally honest shaving mirror.  We used Kevin to get out of town but then threw ‘her’ into a spin when we decided to shortcut up to St Lo via Percy rather than by following the motorways.  We eventually had to turn Kevin off as she was sounding increasingly perturbed that we refused to turn right, then sharp right again to get us back on track.  When we got past St Lo we turned her on again to get us to Pointe du Hoc and she immediately got her revenge by sending us some increasingly local roads until eventually we got to a no-thru-road farmtrack with the road we wanted on the other side of the hedgerow.  A couple of ‘recalculations’ and we were back on track and reached the Pointe by 10am.  Only a few people there so we could wander along the path and take photos of a desolate looking lunar landscape without people in the way.  It was fascinating to see the huge holes blown in the ground from the shells that rained down on the Germans before D-Day and we went down into bunkers and ammunition stores and got a bit of an idea of what it must have been like 70 odd years ago.  There were lots of knowledgeable people there talking to groups so developed the tactic of standing nearby and videoing so learnt some interesting facts such as none of the guns actually being there when the Rangers finally got to the batteries as the Germans had taken them and hidden them in a nearby orchard.

Spent about an hour there before heading on and stopped a bit further down the road at a great road-side D-day museum filled with WWII memorabilia and playing the required Glen Miller soundtrack in the background.  A veritable jumble sale of paraphernalia collected from the war or that had been subsequently dug up as well mementoes that have handed over by survivors such as a Swastika armband with an affidavit saying “I took this from a German that we captured wearing US uniform and who was subsequently executed by firing squad”.  Just totally amazing and Larry was in seventh heaven as the museum lady gave him permission to take as many photos as he liked.

Time to move on and headed to Omaha Beach and drove along its length stopping at the memorial to get out and walk along the sand.  The tide was out so you could see just what a long trek from the water to the other side of the beach it would have been for the landing forces.   Amazing any of them made it at all when you consider that the Germans were razing them with machine guns capable of shooting 1200 bullets per minute.  The only saving grace that I could see was that the sand is very firm so not such a hard slog as if you were trying to cross a Perth beach with 70 pounds worth of equipment on your back.  On to the American Cemetery where it was brought home exactly how many thousands didn’t make it across the beach or in the following days of the invasion.  An extremely sobering experience to see the rows and rows of crosses but very impressive to see the military precision with which they line up from every angle.  We spent some time looking into the visitor centre and watched a short movie which put names and faces to some of the crosses outside.  So sad that so many young lives cut short – some of them only a few years older than our boys.

Hunger eventually drove us out and stopped for a ‘quick snack’ at a cafe down the road – three different types of Normandy cheese on toast with accompanying egg salad – very yummy.  Drove on to Longues-sur-mer and the German battery with bunkers and guns still fairly intact.  Larry did his usual trick of making me exercise straight after a meal by making me walk the entire circuit so we could get to the lookout (sighting and control bunker) but worth the walk as we got our first sight of all the Mulberry harbour remnants out in the water of the bay.  Started drizzling just as we got back in the car but the rain gods remain on our side as it miraculously stopped when we got to Arromanches and we were able to sit on the edge of the ocean wall and have an icecream looking out over Port Winston.  Wandered along the sea front and did a quick tour of the tack shops and suddenly realised it was after 5pm and that it was probably time to head on to our overnight stop.  Reached St Aubin sur Mer and our hotel reasonably easily as Kevin decided to be co-operative and checked into our hotel which is right on the sea front.  Although our room doesn’t face the sea we can see it out of window at an angle and we may possibly hear it tonight if the two old ladies in the room next door ever stop talking.

We had a wander down the seaside promenade before dinner and found another D-day monument as our hotel is pretty much right on Juno beach.  Before we knew it was time for our dinner reservation as we have half board.  The lady was very good at explaining what everything was in English for us so we had some idea of what we were ordering – my limited French doesn’t go as far as the names for various types of seafood.  Had a delicious three course meal and I was very brave and had a plate of various oysters, prawns and sea snails although I drew the line at crunching on the miniature prawns that looked like something a whale should eat.  We were stuffed at the end of the meal we couldn’t finish our delicious apple tarts with caramel sauce and had to waddle up to the room and bloat on the bed for a bit before writing this. J