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D-Day & the Battle of Normandy

A tour that shows the epic's full dimension

Folkore: the Landings' could not help but succeed. Reality: They could easily have failed. Western Europe would then have become either Soviet or Nazi.

This tour differs in emphasizing not a single nationality, but all the major players: the British Commonwealth, the United States, the Russians on the Eastern Front, the civilian population - and the Germans. As well, in showing the unpredictability of war it provides an implicit warning.

 

 
  • World War 2 can be considered a continuation of World War 1, so we start with a giant painting

 

 

Central figure

It covers a full wall in the station from which troops left for the front and illustrates the first days of exaltation, when all Europe believed that a war would be heroic, glorious and brief.

So began the 20th century's disasters.

 

 

 

  • We recall the Landings' scope

    and risk of failure

 

D-Day worked because Churchill's plan of "mystification" succeeded in keeping secret both the time and the place. The Allies then maintained their vulnerable toehold by another policy of subterfuge, which had Germany's elite 15th army remain a few hours' march from the beaches - waiting for an enemy that never came.

 

Hitler stated, and many historians agree, that a single division sent to Normandy in the first days would have thrown the Allies back into the sea.

 

 

  • On to the beaches and cemeteries

 

We visit Pointe du Hoc, where U.S. marines scaled cliffs under machine-gun fire, and "Bloody Omaha", the beach where the landing almost failed. The American Military Cemetery, which is on high ground, looks west over both. Its rows and rows of crosses are extremely impressive.

 

The German cemetery is a five-minute drive away. Dates of births and deaths on the tombstones show that many of the dead were adolescents.

 

 

 
"Mystification" - rubber tank
"The Brave", which a French sculptress offered for the Landing's 60th anniversary (in 2004). At Omaha Beach (Vierville-sur-Mer)

 

 

  • We visit the Omaha Beach Memorial Museum and decode its narration

 

 

  • Then comes the tour's most original aspect: a forgotten battle, ruins and another story

 

We drive east toward the British and Canadian sector along Route 13 and describe some of the conflicts that took place on each heavily-contested meter...

 

and come to an elevation from which cannon could dominate the plain of Caen. Germans and Allies declared that "whoever holds Hill 112 holds Normandy."

 

 
"Hill" 112

That particularity explains the extremely violent attempts to take the hill in June and July. But the Germans held on until the general retreat, on August 3 (we can visit the last battlefield).

 

A sign commemorates the fighting, but most historians omit it... because the Allies failed to dislodge the enemy?

 

  • A civilian has recalled the battle, via his devastated château and a unique exhibit...

 


The guards' house toward 1850 and the château

This 16th-century château was the German headquarters during the battle for Hill 112. The fighting left it in ruins. They are almost the only traces of the war that still remain in Normandy.
The château seen from the guards' house now

The châtelain lives in the guards' house and receives us there. He has used Allied and German equipment hauled out of the moat, and private records, to create an exhibit.

 

 

His exhibit -

 

• gives a glimpse of the war through the eyes of people who were caught up in it. Our host reads dramatic passages from the diary of his grandmother, a marquise, who describes villagers taking refuge in her château and leading them on an exodus to safety. 

 

• uses German documents to reveal an army that maintains its discipline on the verge of defeat. Most of the 20-odd local museums leave out the adversary: Including the occupiers takes courage, because showing interest in them is sometimes viewed as support of them. 

 

•presents this message from a former SS to his adversaries

 

"...our common courage should let us create an association of veterans of Hill 112 who reject return to such horrible combat for all generations to come."

  - Written in July 1989, exactly 45 years after the battle for the hill.

 

 

The Caen-Falaise road in July, 1944, within cannon-range of Hill 112

 

  • Practical suggestions

 

•  We can do the full trip if we leave Paris early and return late (7am-11pm). For a shorter tour, please choose either Omaha Beach and the cemeteries or the ruins and exhibit.  

 

•Or combine the full visit with that Normandy in peace.

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Painting / A Herter (1926); sculpture / Anilore Banon; Caen-Falaise Road / London Times

 

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