Day 7 Normandy Beaches-Bayeux 23 April 2018

Today we visited the Bayeux Tapestry. We have seen it before but it’s very interesting despite the 1960s narration.  Perhaps if they used Jeremy Irons or my favourite, Brian Blessed - it might have been more engaging. Here is our little group heading off to see it. Like virtually all towns here it is quite an attractive place.

We then headed off to the Omaha Beach Cemetery. Since the film Saving Private Ryan was made in 1998, visitor numbers have skyrocketed and they the authorities have had to provide much more parking and improve the road system. The area is surrounded by forest which means there are lots of pretty bird calls which gives it a different atmosphere to the Commonwealth cemeteries.

They also had a new museum.

On Omaha Beach itself, it is clear that it was difficult place to attack up these steep slopes would be quite exhausting…I assume.

 We also visited a little to the north, the Pointe du Hoc where Rangers had to scale 30 plus metre cliffs to destroy gun batteries, of which half were dummy guns. More than half of the US attacking force became casualties. It had been left as a moonscape after aerial bombing and unless the US Army Corps of Engineers intervened the battlefield would have eroded into the sea.

This was one of the French guns to be installed in the battery but they ran out of time.
Many German soldiers are still buried there from the bombardment and assault.  Thy have never been recovered.

Rod also showed us the field of Brecort Manor which featured in episode 2 of the cable TV series of Band of Brothers. The hedgerow obscured a decent photograph.

At Utah Beach there is quite a large complex/museum to visit.  

 This Sherman tank is French showing that they arrived a month later.

On our return journey, we visited one of the few German cemeteries. Here is buried the celebrated German tank commander Michael Wittman and his Tiger Tank crew, killed during the Normandy tank battles with the British.

The grass is worn away from the number of visitors to his grave.  These small markers indicate that there a 5 men interred here.

German cemeteries are simple affairs and there is a bell that relatives can use to let their loved ones know that they were there.  We found two fallen Germans with the surname Pfaff, one a corporal and the other a Squadron leader. Here Elizabeth is ringing the bell.