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| Memorial de Caen Museum |
Our day began by visiting this wonderful museum, which is a real center for the history of the 20th Century.
We learned that the city of Caen, during the Liberation of 1944, had 3/4 of the city destroyed. Wow...
It is thriving now, and this memorial showed many facets of the period during World War II - how the period of peace from WWI was a failure, how it was a truly global war, how a man such as Hitler could come to power and wreak such havoc.
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| Hitler takes Paris |
We went through with an audio guide and listened to many stories from the French perspective which is fascinating. The French resistance worked very hard to keep life normal. This photo below shows a man smiling during his death by firing squad. It is a very famous photo intended to keep up morale during the country's low time of German occupation.
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| The Smiling Prisoner |
We spent a lot of time at the exhibit about D Day at Normandy. The city of Cherbourg is famous for being the US supply area - we shipped all the war supplies directly there by boat while most of the other countries worked on British soil to prepare for the invasion of Normandy.
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| Supplies from Cherbourg for the US Troops |
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| Liberty Ship probably built at Kaiser Shipyards, Portland |
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| Dave with handmade weapons from French Resistance |
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After this, we had a leisurely lunch at the Terrasse Restaurant in the museum to get us ready to drive up to the D Day Beaches. It is a beautiful drive through truly gorgeous country with old farmhouses and rolling countryside. Here is a map of the beaches and will show our progress. Click on photo to enlarge.
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| DDay beaches |
We drove from
Caen up past
Bayeux then north to
Arromanches which is the most westerly of the Gold Beaches for the British. As we drove over the bluff and looked for the first time at the North Channel, we saw what's left of the land bridges that enabled the troops and cargo to be unloaded due to the extreme tides. We then drove west and parked in a wonderful port town called
Port-en-Bessin. We walked out to the outer harbour and took a bunch of photos of the low tide and lovely clouds over town.
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| Low tide looking East |
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| Steep and slick put-in at low tide~! |
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| Port-en-Bessin from the harbor wall | | | | | | | | | | |
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We really enjoyed our time at this lovely port town, but were ready to venture to the WWII 'ground zero' for us Americans, Omaha Beach. Besides, it was getting late!
At
Colleville-sur-Mer, which was not a long drive, we came to signs to the beach and cemetary. We drove down to the beach, first. What a setting! It was so beautiful but you couldn't help remembering what took place here, the landing craft, the pillboxes, the thousands of Americans who perished during the first couple of hours...very haunting.
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| Omaha Beach sign |
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| Where the troops marched and tanks rolled |
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| Imagine trying to march through hedgerows |
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| Looking west down the beach |
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It was nearing 17:00 hours (5pm) and we had to get up to the
Normandy American Cemetery which is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha
Beach. The French government has granted the US a special, perpetual
concession to the land occupied by the cemetery, free of any charge or
tax. Here are buried 9,287 American soldiers, mostly killed during the
invasion of Normandy. The photos say it all.
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| Normandy American Memorial |
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| Gravestones |
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Honoring our Brave Soldiers
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