France, Part 23 - The Beaches of Normandy, Clouds over Utah Beach

I have dared to stand where giants tread, where the blood of a generation spilled out upon the wind whipped sands.  I have dared to see the place where young men fought against an unspeakable evil, threw their lives against what was considered an impenetrable wall built against them.  I do not dare to presume I was worthy to stand in such places, to see such things, to bear witness to a place where such history happened.  These words, these thoughts are what can best summarize the beaches of Normandy and the ruins of the Atlantic wall.  Few other places or things have moved me so much on so many levels – spiritual, physical, emotional.  

The morning dawned with cloud covered skies, and a heavy rain had covered the town of Bayeux.  We set out by car for Utah Beach to begin our pilgrimage, and to all who come to this place, I suggest the exact same route – you will see why.  Utah is the Southern most of the landing points, but it houses the best museum of all the ones out there.  When we arrived we stepped out of the car into driving winds and a pattering of rain.  It whipped against us, over the dunes and the sea grass as we climbed one of the sandy peaks.   There, stretching out before us was the Atlantic ocean, with waves crashing one against another upon the beach itself.

It is a surreal experience to stand there, to see this place as it is now.  There is the museum of course, a memorial, and one can even walk out on the beach itself.  This latter part confused me, as it is a place were men fought and died.  I suppose though, it is a part of history and they wish to give access to all who want it – we chose not to go out.   There are a few things other than the memorial that is out there, a few anti-tank objects, a mortar or two, a tank itself, etc.  It was a grim, solemn place that seemed clouded by the memories of war.

You can see the clouds cleared up a bit at the museum when we left

Yet it was a good place as well.  The "Debarquement Musee" is a fantastic museum set in the ruins of an old bunker.  Wandering around you can see where mortar placements were done and there are excellent exhibits on the machines, the men and the plans that were involved in the entire campaign.  The museum here set a tone of perspective for everything else we were to see.  One of the highlights was a fully restored B27 that sits in a hanger in the center of the building. 

Utah was one of the most important beaches in Operation Overlord, though Omaha is the one that is more famous.  It was here troops landed in the wrong spot after the heavy bombing of the surrounding area.

Exmples of landing craft, machine guns, anti-tank obstacles among other things

US Army deployment truck

This is one of the Landing craft for D-day. Notice the flat bottom. The craft was meant to land in shallow water and then turn around to go pick up more troops for deployment.  

Example US Army D-Day fatigues and supplies.  They were carrying a TON.

The museum is built on an old bunker.  This is one of the pits looking down to a mortar gun.

Looking out on the Utah Beach Bluffs

The men here had to push to clear so much land, so that they could get a firm beachhead.  The Nazi’s had flooded the surrounding countryside.  To get a foothold in Europe took the combined thrust of the 101^st airborne from behind and the amphibious landing on all the other beachheads .  Stepping back outside after our visit, it was not hard to mount that same dune again and stare out over the sea – then picture ships on the horizon.   I could imagine them now, the sound of bullets whizzing past, the distant boom of cannons and the shouts of men.  My grandmother, sweet woman she was, would have taken a tiny pinch of sand as a remembrance.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  

We had a lot more to see.  Normandy is huge, and with so much history to be continued in Part 2!

France, Part 22 - Saint James and Bayeux

Saint James Cemetery near Bouceel is not any grand memorial.  It is a simple, beautiful and austere place.  From the outside it is protected by stone walls with a stone church in the center.  Inside the church are illustrated pictures of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion, and the beaches.  There are displays with quotes and stories of men who were there.   Outside are rows upon rows of headstones stalwart and silent like soldiers filed neatly upon the grass.  They are all graves of young men, many younger than I myself as I write this.  

I am no stranger to a military cemetery.  As a kid and cub scout, it was my distinct honor to place flags on Memorial Day at graves in the military cemeteries in Los Angeles.  At the time, it was a “fun” game to me, and the gravity of the place did not settle in.  When I was older and more mature, I visited Arlington Military Cemetery in Washington DC.   There I saw the many thousands of graves, the solemn parades, the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknowns.

Saint James was different.  It was a quiet place, graced only by the sun, by birds, and by the wind.   There are doves everywhere here, as if a holy spirit watches over this place.  Nearby, at the keeper’s house, I caught sight of a young girl skipping rope.  She seemed perfectly happy, at ease.  She probably couldn’t have been older than ten, but it put a thought of my own experience as a kid in my mind.  This girl had the freedom to be a normal child because of the lives lost, the souls enshrined beyond her doorstep.

George Mick's Grave

We passed down row upon row of tombs, and fount the one Reggi referred us to back at his home. It read: “George Mick, Tec 5, 25 Cav, RCN SO, ARMD DIV.  Wisconson, Sept 5, 1944.”   A few words, a few numbers to mark a life.   There was already a bouquet of the same flowers and we laid ours atop their and took a moment to reflect.   The man, the boy, had only been 24 when he died.   There were others nearby as well.   21 year old from Texas, 23 year old from Indiana.   There were Jewish stars next to Christian crosses, and one tomb that simply read “Here rests a brother in arms known only to God.”

Jewish grave

We stayed a good while at the Saint James, a sobering place and a quiet reflection on the lives we found there.   Thinking back on it now, it is not hard to be overwhelmed with emotion.   The men here, they were involved with the story of my own freedom, the story of Reggi and his father and the stories we were to experience later on.   We drove away, bound for our next destination but with all of these things in mind.

I pause here to reflect.  This is just a fraction of the dead, of those who gave their lives so that others could live.  It was the tip of the iceberg, the spearhead of a flood of places and emotions that were to come on Normandy.  When one stands there, among the silence, among the honored dead, you become a different person.  We left Saint James, and our little offering of flowers to George Mick's grave behind.  Somehow that image of the flowers and the gave will stay with me above a lot of Paris and many other places, wonderful though they were.

 ---

The town of Bayeux and the Hotel Lyon D’Or served as our lodgings for the Normandy coast itself.   The town itself was a charming little castle town, and we had a room up near the rooftops that made mom feel like we were living out of a scene in Mary Poppins.  There is yet another lovely cathedral of Notre Dame here, and like the others its design and form were beautiful inside and out.  I personally thought the stained glass was the finest we’d yet seen.  The way the light filtered into the church, it created a heavenly landscape of colors, soft and inviting.  It seemed to me like God smiled upon us after our gesture at the cemetery.

The only thing I would skip at the church was the crypt, which was very creepy and had a distinctly unpleasant feeling.   From there we went to visit the tapestry of Bayeux which tells the story of William the Conqueror's rise to power.  It is magnificent and huge at over 700 meters long, all embroidered.  It depicts battles, horses and people involved in the Battle of Hastings and the Norman invasion.  The whole tapestry is hundreds years old, the oldest tapestry in the world.   We listened to the story through English translation in a device provided, and were doubly pleased to arrive there on a day when all museums in France were free.  There is a certain poetry in seeing this tapestry upon the eve of seeing the Normandy beaches.  The Normans fought and died here too hundreds of years ago (though not on the same spot.)  Seeing the images upon the cloth, one reflects later images from photographs.

Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry

After that we visited a small museum in the town which showcased exhibits of the planning, vehicles and people involved in the landing.  It was a simple museum, and nothing grand.  Thankfully most of the exhibits were in English, but the crowds of high school students made it hard to take in the true gravity of some of the things we saw there.   Dinner was extremely simple, no three course meal, but just a sandwich ordered at a local café.   We were tired of the long meals and the longer trek, of crowds and the jostling of bodies.  We retired to the hotel to rest and ready ourselves for the next day when we would visit the very beaches of Normandy.

France, Part 21 - The Ghost of Bouceel and other Conversations

After the long story about Arnaud, I had a very fitful sleep.   Perhaps it was the bed which was probably built for Napoleon when he was a child, but I hardly got any sleep after the exhausting day.  It was probably the worst time I had sleeping while in France.  The next day, however, was more of an improvement. 

My family woke at the Chateau Bouceel next morning and shared a lovely breakfast cooked by Reggi himself.  The first thing he asked, of course was, “Were you visited by the ghost?”

“Ghost?”  we asked. 

“Oui,” he said.  “The Countess, it is she who this house was built for.   She is here now, has been since we opened it up to guests.  I suppose she enjoys the life and love that is once again after so many years of quiet.”

None of us had seen a ghost, though my mom had locked the door to the room, mostly because the upstairs was just a little creepy.  None of us really believed in ghosts, but Reggi shared a story that had me convinced.  Supposedly he came down one night and found a light on.  This light was on a particular switch that needed to be pushed to go in.  Reggi said he flipped the switch and was halfway up the stairs when the thing clicked itself back in and the light came on.   At the same time, a similar light was being pushed on in a neighboring house they rent out, and the guests told him the story the next morning.

Reggi related to them the story of the countess, and was surprised to find that one of the guests was actually a medium.   “It happened perhaps because she was there, for there was no way they could have known about my own relation with the light at the same time of night.”  He said with a smile.

There were more stories, including the aforementioned one about General Armond.  Reggi imparted bits of the man’s life, and how after championing American democracy he had returned to a monarchy in crisis.  Though a war hero, he was a noble and immediately beset by the mobs of Robespierre and chased.  Gravely injured during his ride, the man was taken to a local house of a friend he knew.   There, he learned of the death of Louis XVI, and this man who had fought for our independence so valiantly simply could not continue to live.  He died before the terror that was to follow.

I’d sat and listened for quite a while, and now something of my own curiosity stirred in my head.  Sitting there beneath the portraits of his ancestors and Marie Antoinette, and given all the history he’d related, I had to ask.  “What is the French perception of their revolution now?   At the time, I know, they thought they were championing democracy but all they got was darker depravity and terror.   Do they still believe it is the great thing to this day?’

Reggi considered my question.  Foremost in my mind was the haunted feeling I’d had at Versailles staring at the paintings, the story about the plan for a giant guillotine where the Eiffel is, and my own study of the history of the Revolution.   At length he related his own feeling.  “The French kings were moderate ones, and Louis the XVI wanted change for his people’s good.  He was resisted by the very forces that put him to death however.  He knew and feared for what would happen without a monarchy, for he knew the danger of nearby Prussia.   The land was under French control, and sure enough after the fall of the regime, those lands were shattered by their own infighting.   After the revolution, Napolean reunited those lands as one, and only made things worse, for after his own departure and with his influence, they became Germany.   Shortly after we had the 100 years war … then after that World War I, World War II.”

Reggi paused and shook his head.  “No, I do not think that the French believe the revolution was so great.  In the end, the intelligence of the mob is only equal to the single least educated person among them all.” 

It was an interesting insight, and I had to reflect deeply upon it.  I had always been taught and thought myself that the last king and queen of France were victims of their own unfortunate circumstance.   From the portraits and from my research, they were the most human of the house of Bourbon.  In the end, they were put to death by the people they had loved, but had misunderstood.  Louis had wanted to champion a democracy, in the end, that democracy ended the lives of his innocent family and thousands more to come.  Suddenly, the notion of a giant guillotine in Paris was even more gruesome and condescending.  

We left Reggi’s house on the somber discussion of revolution, and with a small bouquet of flowers prepared by the man himself.  We also took the opportunity to buy a copy of his father’s comic book.   Reggi had said that the book was only a small part of a larger work he’s tried to get together, and that there has been an interest in the story from film makers.  

He hoped to relate the story, not for profit, but for the good of those who lived it and should share in it as we had.    There are only 1000 copies of the book in print, and it feels sort of like having our own rare volume in the house now.   While the text is in French the meaning and the stories within are still tremendous.

 It was bittersweet to leave that house.   In the end, Reggi became the reason I fell in love with France.  Everything I was to see from in Normandy, I could relate back to his own story.  He was our connection in France to everything that was to follow, and to our own history in America.  We drove away now, bound for Saint James Cemetery, the gateway to our leg through Normandy itself.