“The Longest Day” or “Saving Private Delbango”

On Sunday I took the long awaited trip to Normandy and the D-Day
battlegrounds. When I first looked at the map of Brest, I saw that
Normandy didn't look so far away, a lot closer than any other attraction
that I wanted to see in France like Paris. A lot of other people on the
ship felt the same way. The Captain's aide, Anderson Smith, who arranges
the tours for us, tried to get a Normandy tour from the ship's agent in
Brest. Apparently no one else who goes to Brest goes to Normandy. There
were no "canned" tours to Normandy available. Not to be daunted, he was
able to rent busses for us to take us up there where we would meet a local
guide to take us around.

Two days were set up, Saturday and Sunday, for 80 persons each. They sold
out quickly. As it turns out Normandy wasn't that close, the tours were
scheduled to be 18 hours long! Most of that was traveling time to and from
the region. Originally, I planned to go Saturday because I knew such a
long day would wear me out and I'd be exhausted Monday when we departed..
I reconsidered and booked for Sunday when I realized that almost
everything in Brest would probably be closed that day.

The tours were scheduled to leave at 04:00, way before dawn. We left an
hour late in a Breton rain with about 3 hours of the driving in the dark.
What a lot of driving it was. It took us 5 hours total to arrive in the
town of Bayeux, home of William the Conqueror. Unfortunately, we were
running late and didn't get time to walk around the town. We met our
guide and headed on our tour of the D-Day battle sites.

We passed some sites, such as the British and German cemeteries, without
stopping, while our guide regaled us with facts and stories about the
invasion. Our first stop was the town of St. Mère Église. This was the
town where the U.S 82nd Airborne paratroopers landed the night before the
invasion to act as pathfinders for the invasion force. Located here is
the Musée Airborne devoted totally to the airborne aspect of the invasion.
Moving on, we went to Utah Beach, the westernmost beast of the invasion
and the one with least casualties. Little remains of the gun emplacements
or any other traces of the war. Only a few monuments dot the site.

Next we went to Pointe du Hoc, a 150' high, jagged cliff that 225 Army
Rangers climbed to successfully capture a Nazi gun emplacement, only 90
survived. The landscape is still littered, like the surface of the moon,
with bomb and shell craters 20' deep. A very surreal spot.

We finally drove to Omaha Beach which was the bloodiest of all sites in
the area. It's easy to see why it was such a killing field. It is a
wide beach at the low tide that the invasion took place. There is no
place to hide. The Nazis had an unobstructed view of the entire beach
from their machine gun nests on the bluff above the beach. We hiked
along the beach and up the bluff where there are now stairs. At the top
is the largest of the American war cemeteries in France. It is a
magnificently beautiful spot, perfectly manicured bushes, trees and grass
with row upon row of stone crosses and Stars of David. Over 9,000
Americans were left here. Many more of the dead were sent home at their
families' wishes. All of the stones face home to the west. There is a
beautiful chapel and a memorial with the names of those missing or never
identified. It is an incredibly moving spot that really makes you
appreciate the sacrifices made by those men and women (there are 4 here).

After the cemetery it was time to bid adieu to our guide and head back to
the ship. We arrived back at 23:00, exhausted, but inspired by the sites
of the day.