France: Normandy, D-Day Beaches, St. Mere Eglise, American Cemetery

Visiting Normandy, D-Day Sites, and the Normandy American Cemetery where my uncle is buried...

Omaha beach above and panorama picture of Omaha Beach below.

The Uncle I never knew.  Freedom is not free....

D-Day, June 6 1944

On that day 69 years ago, the fate of the free world rested on the shoulders of young men, average age 21 years old.  Though past its pinnacle of power and on the defensive against the Soviets in the east, Nazi Germany still controlled nearly all of Europe.  A failure on D-Day would set the Allies back another 9 to 12 months, allow Hitler to divert resources back toward the Soviet front, and perhaps in the end allow evil to reign much longer than it ultimately did....and achieve the total annihilation of the Jews in Europe.

Omaha beach today looking from east to west at sunset

The battle which ensued on that day is something which I don't believe we will ever see again.  Technology and weapons of mass destruction have completely changed the face of war since then, and so this battle really is unique to history.

I have read many books about World War II and this battle in particular.  The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan is a great book about D-Day which we read parts of as we prepared for this day. Another great book is D-Day: June 6, 1944 by Stephen Ambrose.  For movie lovers, Steven Spielberg's 1998 movie "Saving Private Ryan" highlights the fight on Omaha Beach and subsequent horrors of fighting village to village.

Omaha Beach

The D-Day invasion of Normandy relied upon massive bombing by allied air forces before the troops went in, paratroopers and gliders landing inland, and 5 beaches being invaded by infantry & armored units delivered to the shores via special boats.  The beaches were code named Juno (Canadian), Sword (British), Gold (British), Utah (American), and Omaha (American).  The bombings and preparatory work on Juno, Sword, Gold and Utah had their intended effects, and the landing forces there went better than expected with little resistance on the beaches themselves.

Photo taken during one of first waves to reach Omaha Beach

But somehow the bombers dropped all their bombs inland on Omaha Beach.  And the Naval Gun Fire overshot the Omaha Beach due to poor visibility.  In short, Rommel's defenses which had been built up significantly from late January 1944 to early June 1944 were all still present on Omaha beach....especially the machine gun nests.


Adding to the misery that was to come on Omaha Beach, the ships designed to carry the armor units to this beach took on too much water in the rough seas in front of Omaha and NONE of the tanks made it to the beach (whereas most tanks in the other beaches worked out as planned).  So, the infantry who made it to Omaha Beach not only faced well fortified German units but did so with no armor units to assist.

They didn't have a chance.  The early scenes in Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' effectively depict the horror of the Omaha Beach landings.  It was an absolute blood bath which threatened the success of the entire invasion because Omaha was between Utah and the other beaches.  Had the Nazis driven these units into the sea, they would have broken the Allied lines in two and would have had a much better chance of defeating the invasion.

The following map shows the sectors of Omaha Beach as well as key German defenses (red highlights).  The 2 bloodiest sectors of Omaha Beach were Dog Green on the left side of the map (this is where Spielberg chose to shoot the landing scenes in Saving Private Ryan) and Fox Green on the right side (where our hotel happened to be).

Our hotel was on the beach in the Fox Green sector directly where the German defenses were in the second red patch from the right.  Below is the view from our porch which would have been the view of the German defenses on that day.  In the distance are the cliffs which are near Pointe du Hoc (talked about later) between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach....

Here is another way to look at Fox Green....it is the sector between German defensive points WN61 and WN62.  Notice the 'draws' that head up inland.  Everything else is a cliff so the draws were the only route vehicles could take to get inland from the beaches....and thus notice how heavily defended they were.  Our hotel was on WN61....

WN62 was the stronghold from which German soldier Heinrich Severloh served as a machine gunner.  We learned about him later in the day when our guide at the American Cemetery talked about this man known as The Beast of Omaha (also the title of his autobiography) as he likely caused 1000 American casualties on that day and quit his post only after he ran out of ammunition at 3pm in the afternoon.

Based on Severloh's book, point A below is where his machine nest was located at WN62.  Our hotel is the building complex at the far right.  The American Cemetary is at the far left with the memorial being the area that looks like a half spoked wheel.  The cemetery overlooks the Easy Red sector of Omaha beach.  That area is a cliff which was not as heavily defended and in the end the Americans won on Omaha Beach by going up the cliffs and circling around from the top to defeat the strongholds at the draws (that and naval guns coming in close to blast German defenses late in the morning)....

View from machine gun nest at Point A above.....

That large blank space in the aerial photo above where point A lies (ie WN62) still has many ruins from the German defenses as well as a memorial the 'The Big Red 1" (1st Division US Army which attacked here).

I thought we would just stop in this area for a few minutes before heading to other sites, but we ended up spending over an hour here exploring...

Love the shot of this tree (which wasn't there on D-Day as Field Marshall Rommel had all trees and shrubs removed).  It gives you a sense of the strength of the winds in this area of the world....

Exploring the ruins...

27 weeks pregnant at the time but Rachel was fully a part of everything we did....

But these are the pictures I love the most...

On the killing fields of yesteryear where good triumphed over evil, a little boy now runs and plays.

Let. Freedom. Ring.

And farmers and cows occupy the strong points on the bluffs....

Pointe du Hoc

One of the most incredible missions accomplished that day happened at Pointe du Hoc....a key point between the Utah and Omaha beaches where large German guns were located which could have had a devastating impact on the landings.  A team of Army Rangers were tasked with scaling these cliffs and taking out the guns.

And scale these cliffs is exactly what they did!  I look at the picture above and it really doesn't do justice to what these Rangers did as it is difficult to see just how high the cliffs are.  They are 100 feet tall which is like climbing an 8 to 10 story building under hostile enemy fire.  These real life supermen climbed those cliffs in less than 30 seconds.

When I visited Normandy 20 years ago, this was one of my favorite parts because it felt like nothing had been touched.  I remember blown apart bunkers with huge chunks of bunkers blown off sitting upside down.  This was a very important piece of real estate and the Allies bombed it in a big way...

I was a little disappointed this time around because it has definitely become more 'touristy'  There is a visitor center being built and the place has been cleaned up a bit (no more overturned blown up parts of bunkers) but the bomb holes are still there which AJ loved....

And many of the more 'solid' bunkers still remain...

The Rangers did their job that day though they were initially surprised to NOT find the guns in place!  They found them a bit inland, destroyed them, and then defended against fierce counterattacks by the Germans.  They held the crucial road in the sector and were relieved after 2 days of fighting with only 90 men still able to fight out of the 225 who started the operation.

Despite my slight disappointment versus expectations, it is still worthwhile to go there if you ever visit Normandy.

St. Mere Eglise

The first town liberated in France was St. Mere Eglise in the Utah Beach section of the invasion (see Utah beach in graphic below, follow the blue arrows from Utah beach and most point toward  St Mere Eglise).

Airborne units parachuted in and around St. Mere Eglise after midnight with a famous scene playing out in the town (as depicted in Cornelius Ryan's book The Longest Day).

A fire had broken out in a house just across the street from the town church.  The mayor at the time alerted the Germans who allowed the town people out from the curfew to put out the fire.  As all the German troops were in the town square, airborne troops from the US 82nd Airborne unit started dropping into the town.  John Steele's parachute got caught on the church and he was unable to free himself.  He watched the 2 hour battle below before being taken prisoner by the Germans.

The town celebrates this story by keeping a replica of the paratrooper on the church itself....

After The Longest Day was made into a movie in the early 1960s, John Steele became a bit of a celebrity in St. Mere Eglise.  He visited a few times before his death in 1969 from throat cancer...

And wrote this letter to the people of St. Mere Eglise (now included in the Airborne Museum)

The town commemorated the event as well by making the stain glass window at the back of the church a tribute to what happened that night...

The Airborne Museum

The Airborne Museum resides next to the church.  There are SO many little museums in and around the beach area.  We passed at least 6 that I can think of.  But this was the one mentioned as the 'best' by a D-Day tour guide Rick Steve interviewed.  So, this is the one we went to and it was a fantastic museum.

They even mark the spot where the fire was on that historic night....

AJ loved this place for a variety of reason:

Trucks....

TANKS!

And airplanes (well, gliders but it looked like a plane to him)....

The Museum had so many interesting artifacts including actual gliders which the Allies used to bring in troops, trucks and even tanks behind enemy lines....

Notice the picture taken just before the glider left England...

Most of these gliders met very bad fates as Rommel had put huge poles in the ground (called Rommel Asparagus) to destroy gliders landing in fields.  He also flooded many fields making glider and paratroop landings much more difficult...

But AJ basically just had a great time at this museum...

Yikes!

The actions of so many men that night were incredible.  Here is one of many stories....read the Medal of Honor Citation below.

But valor wasn't the only thing on display during the invasion.  Compassion came as well as told in this wonderful story...

One part of the museum really touched me...the part about the opening of the American Cemetery.  There were words from the French in Normandy that read "We treated these men as if they were our own sons and our own brothers.  We laid them to rest and honored them as they should be honored."  My dad's brother lies beneath one of those crosses.

And so it seemed natural at that time to head to the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer

The American Cemetery 
To all those who died in Normandy fighting for freedom...

Upon arrival we checked in at the front desk of the Visitor's Center, told them we were here to visit my uncle's grave, and the staff rolled out the red carpet for us.  They printed out a certificate, gave us a packet of information, and gave us a guide with a golf cart to visit the site.  We learned that they only get about 200 direct relatives coming to visit each year and all of them get treated as we were treated.  It was one of the best experiences of our time in Europe.

Our guide took us to my uncle's grave....one of 9,387 in the cemetery which was first established June 8, 1944.  He told us stories about others who are buried here from Medal of Honor winners to 4 women who served and died.

He brought with him sand from Omaha Beach which he rubbed into the lettering and then using a sponge wiped away the excess to make the name, rank, and dates stand out. He brought the flags as well...

When I sent these pictures to my mom, she said she has pictures of me when I was 3 years old standing with my dad in the same place.  Perhaps I will add that picture to this page when I get back to the States...

AJ sitting on the wall overlooking the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach...

Our guide, Constant, was a true professional who is absolutely passionate about what he does.  He is a history major who has already published one book.  He said he doesn't see these graves as graves....he sees them as human stories that are here to remind us.  His family told him how the Americans liberated his hometown of Carentan, and he serves now to honor them so that future generations will never forgot.

Constant dropped us off at the visitors center and we toured the monument on our own.  

My uncle was just one of millions of people lost in World War II.  He had a story that ended too soon...a West Point graduate from the Class of 1939 whose life held much promise.  On his graduation day in late spring 1939 the war that would take him from us hadn't even begun.  His death left a permanent scar on my family.

My dad was 14 at the time, and it most certainly changed the trajectory of his life.  I wonder sometimes if my dad would have gone to West Point (Class of 1952) if his brother had lived?  Perhaps he had 6 children to subconsciously add to the family tree that which was lost with his brother's death?

I remember a paper I did in high school on World War II where I interviewed my dad.  He talked about the worst day of the war being the day he learned his brother had been killed in action.  It happened during a campaign history now knows as Operation Cobra, the breakout from St. Lo....which would catapult the Allies into Paris three weeks after my uncle's death.  My dad was in Dallas when he got the news.  He talked about how my grandfather was at war as a 2 star general and how my grandmother was alone, crushed with the news.

My father spoke so poignantly that day and I still feel the emotions welling in me as I write.  He talked then about part of the family tree being cut off before bearing fruit.  Uncle Stanley never married and had no children.  I have so many questions about him.  What was his personality like?  Did he have a girlfriend?  Had he ever been in love?  What were his hopes and dreams?  What did the world lose with his death?  The answers are lost to the ages... and these are the questions that could be asked of all who died in WWII from Jews in the gas chambers to soldiers on the battlefield to civilians caught in the crossfire of war.

Next to my uncle's grave lies a tomb of an unknown soldier, one of 307 such graves in the cemetery.  I felt sadness looking at that grave knowing that some family somewhere not only dealt with the loss of the future but never had the opportunity to have closure.

To those who are known to Him but unknown to us, may God hold them in the palm of His hand.  I believe one day I will meet my Uncle Stanley, but not in this world.      

Til next time, God bless.

Edit Memorial Day 2016:  My cousin, David Scott, just posted this about our Uncle Stan on his Facebook account -- "During World War II, my uncle, Maj. Stanley C. Scott, serving in the US Army's 18th Field Artillery Battalion, was inserted along with his unit at Utah Beach at Normandy, France, on July 9, 1944, shortly after the D-Day invasion.

On August 3, they were pinned down by enemy fire outside St. Lo. Knowing that forward progress could not be made until the precise German positions were known, he made a critical life and death decision; someone had to recon the enemy. Refusing to assign that dangerous mission to anyone but himself, Uncle Stan and a lone communications officer snuck well out in front of Allied lines and, with long range optics and measurement equipment, gathered the much needed information. Upon completion, he raised up to return to safety and took a sniper's bullet through the heart. He is buried alongside his fellow patriot-warriors in the US cemetery at Normandy.

Uncle Stan was my family's first Eagle Scout, having earned it in 1932 along with 6 Eagle palms in the process. And I'm sure that he's proud that all 6 of his nephews are Eagle Scouts, along with 3 of 4 eligible grandnephews who did it, and another one who's nearly there as well.

In his memory, I always wear the scarlet acorns of the US Army Artillery on my BSA campaign hat and Wood Badge Stetson.

Edit Memorial Day 2018: My cousin, David Scott, is the family historian and let Rachel and me know that Uncle Stan had qualified for the 1940 Olympic Team in the modern pentathalon.  His strongest event was the shooting event.  He must have inspired my father, Gilbert Scott, who was an expert marksman and champion pistol shooter on a National Championship team at West Point and passed on his expertise as a coach of The Ohio State University pistol team.

Other Favorite Pictures

The one German bunker we found that still had a gun in it.  Look at the size of that thing!  It was pointed at Omaha beach.

Outside one the many museums in the area...tank obstacle that was once on the beach

Church at Colleville-sur-Mer.  In the downtown area of this little village they had pictures of what the buildings looked like in June 1944 after liberation and of course what they look like now.  

Really neat looking Bed & Breakfast we saw along the road....

Playground on Omaha Beach.  AJ loved it....

Playing on the beach the morning we left.  It is hard to imagine such a beautiful place was a place of complete hell that June day in 1944.  But there really is something beautiful about people enjoying this beach now.  It is what those men fought and died for years ago....freedom.

The previous day we saw 3 wheeled vehicles powered by sails riding along the beach.  One of the reasons this area was chosen for the invasion was the packed sand could support tanks and other vehicles.

The kids and me....WN62 is in the background

The photobomber gets photobombed!

And for the real WWII D-Day history buffs....an example of one of the fields surrounded by hedgroves that gliders and paratroopers landed in (many of which were flooded by Rommel)

AJ and what we call The 12 Apostles (his 12 little cars / planes that have been with AJ since Israel....um, somehow one of the cars was left out....probably Judas ;)