I’m on a boat to Cherbourg myself in a couple of weeks. Haven’t floated yet the idea of myself and the two boys (3 & 5) popping into St Mere Elise or even a quick diversion to Bayeux. All about catching the right time!
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St Mere Eglise is a lovely little village on its own right and is well worth the stop off for lunch. There is a car park just outside the village with pay parking. Just off the main square there is a fine bakery (the French call them boulangeries) which sells nice sandwiches that you could sit in the square and eat, but it’s closed on Wednesdays. If you’ve pulled in off the road anyway a ten minute diversion to Utah Beach itself might be in order. The American cemetery at Colleville and the German Cemetery at La Cambe are also worth visiting. The German one is literally just off the main road and is, in its own way, the most fascinating of the lot.
The main cemetery at Bayeux is also very accessible. Just drive past it and there is a car park for a museum about 100 yards ahead on your left that you can use.well worth the visit.
I always leave time when I’m coming back to the ferry to visit some of these spots. You won’t regret it.
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Why is that ?
Nein.
A number of reasons. First because they lost the war, there is none of the air of “they died so you might be free” that you get in the other cemeteries. They died and that was that. Ultimately there was no purpose to their dying. There is no celebratory aspect to the place. Second it’s very Germanic, the graves are in the style of Iron Crosses and the font is in the Germanic style. Third, the soldiers are noticeably younger than the allied cemeteries. There is a real sense of a desperate state pouring every able bodied male of whatever age into the front line. They can hardly have been trained. There is an air of absolute futility about the place.
Also it has the best toilets between Caen and Cherbourg.
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Those American troops are my heroes. If it wasn’t for them hitler could have ruled for a long time.
I was there when I was younger. We used to holiday in France every summer.
I can’t say it was a highlight of a holiday but it wasn’t as bad as my stuff getting binned to fit more bottles of wine into the car.
My mother’s sister emigrated to America in the 50s. Married an American. His two brothers fought on D Day and survived. He was too young.
I asked him if they ever spoke about it or were they treated as heroes. He said not really - he said if you were of that age and from that neighborhood you went to war and you came back or you didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal. It was a fact of life.
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Yes I’ve been doing a bit of reading recently on that time. Watching A few documentaries on YouTube too. A lad was saying basically whatever tiny town he was from in America only two fellas didn’t join the army due a medical and both committed suicide.
I think over 50 percent of men between born between 1910 and 1920 joined the army in America.
One other mad story I came across was one of the main characters in band of brothers never told his family he joined the war. After he came home for four years he went off the grid. Then got married and had kids. He was dead by the time band of brothers aired and his kids only found out when they saw it on tv. It actually turned out the description of him in the series was completely incorrect as he was depicted as being Jewish.
One of kids said they found a set of jump wings in some of his stuff years later.
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The Nazi’s had long lost the war by the time D-Day came around.
There are endless random stories about that day.
The Germans had carefully kept reserves back outside the range of allied ships engaging in shore bombardment. Seeing the recon report, the USS Texas flooded it’s ballast tanks on one side to extend the range of it’s 14" guns and proceeded to evaporate unsuspecting German armour staging areas.
Omaha and Utah aside, the other beaches were taken fairly painlessly.
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I’m not sure that theory stands up much does it really. They split the German forces and made it almost impossible for them to hold out.
from I can see if he didn’t go near Russia he’d have held out easily but I’ve only a passing interest. I’m not an expert.
Some would say that even if the Americans hadn’t joined in the Russians would have wiped them out.
I know that but heaven knows where the Russians would have stopped as well.
It’s a delicate enough balance too.
It’s amazing how being a greedy leads to the down fall of so many people.
Historians tend to say their fate was sealed in December 1941. Barbarossa had failed and they declared war on the USA. They just didn’t have the resources to win a global war like that
Not many. Nazi Germany of 1941 1 v 1 against the USSR would have been a fair fight
One other thing that resonated with me was the poverty of the American troops by and large.
I saw a few of them mention by the end of the war they were getting letters about how america was suddenly booming.
People were on holidays in Miami Beach. The attendances at horses races went through the roof. The country had taken off.
It must have been crazy to come back home again and settle in.
The Americans entered the war for the gain of the American empire and nothing more. They’re all fucking pigs
Americas army was tiny at the start of the war. It was amazing how quickly the tooled up and trained up.
Finished off the Europeans after WW1. No more riches to pilfer