Normandy: D Day beaches and cemeteries

We stayed in the small town of Arromanches-Les-Bains, where the British landed on D Day. In the harbor there are still many signs of D Day. The English towed cement structures from England that they filled with water to become breakwaters, and many of those are still visible. They also brought metal landing docks, and some of them can still be seen on the beaches. Arromanches has a wonderful museum, and Dave was awed by the engineering feat that the D Day landings reveal. Throughout the town are tanks and cannons and other reminders of D Day.

Now that you've seen what the harbor at Arromanches looks like today, here's a photo from the museum of what it looked like at the time of the D Day landing.

Standing at Arromaches and looking to the left, or the west, you can see cliffs. A few miles further along those cliffs is Omaha Beach, where Americans landed and had to scale the cliffs. The Nazi soldiers at the top of the cliffs were well trained and effective. About 3000 soldiers perished at Omaha Beach on D Day. Here's the view to the west from Aromanches.

Here's what the cliffs at Omaha Beach look like.

At the top of the cliffs, some German bunkers remain. Dave climbed around inside them. Here's one of them. Note the bullet holes in the ceiling, which may have come from the Americans climbing the cliff.

I've seen photos of the American cemetery in Normandy many times but I hadn't realized several things. There are two of the cemeteries, and one of them is at the top of the cliffs at Omaha Beach, so you have a sense of immediacy about how hard it was for those soldiers to scale the cliff. Another thing I hadn't realized is the scale of the cemetery. It goes on and on and on, with almost 10,000 soldiers buried there. Because of the layout and the divisions between sections, it's hard to take a photograph that captures the size of the cemetery. Here's a photo of the monument by the cemetery and some of the graves.

Dave also visited the English Cemetery in Bayeux. He was struck by the difference in the headstones. At the Omaha Beach American cemetery, the headstones give only the person's name and military affiliation. At the English cemetery, families could add a comment on the headstones. He also enjoyed the flowers decorating many of the graves at the English cemetery, in contrast to the plain graves at the American cemetery.

The headstone at the far left above says "With Christ, which is far better (Phil. 1:23), and the headstone below says at the bottom, "Not just today but every day we remember him."

In both the English and American cemeteries, there were a lot of graves for unindentified soldiers. Below is one from the English cemetery that says "A sailor of the 1939-1945 war known only to God."



A chart at the Bayeux English cemetery lists the people in the cemetery, showing it's not really just an English cemetery. Eight New Zealanders are buried there, as you can see, along with people from nine other countries.

In the film at the Bayeux Tapestry museum, they mentioned the engraving along the top of the monument below, at the English Cemetery in Bayeux, which says in Latin "We who were conquered by William have returned to liberate the land of the conqueror."

I have to say, we went to Normandy because Dave had read so much about the D Day beaches. I was only vaguely interested. But I found the whole experience much more moving than I expected, bringing tears to my eyes many, many times.