Everywhere you go in this area of France is dedicated to the Normandy invasion by the Allies in June 1944. There is a memorial here, a museum there and of course the places marked down in the history of the time.
There is another history here though, in Bayeux they have that tapestry which records the exploits of Harold and William and the other invasion, that of England in 1066.
Bayeux is only a few kilometres from Caen and we made that the first stop of the day, another church, a French town and a museum. The day was again warm and sunny with only one shower which happen when we were in the church, so no problem there as the umbrellas were in the car.
The tapestry is hanging in the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux. Some interesting facts are: it is over 70 metres in length with 50 numbered panels depicting the various scenes in the period leading up to and after the invasion of 1066 and all that. It was said to be commissioned by Bishop Odo, William's half brother and made not in Bayeux but in England although both these facts are disputed. What is not disputed is that it is a pretty accurate description of events and is a masterpiece of embroidery of the period. It is hung a in a darkened run in a softly lit U shaped cabinet, although there is a glass partition you can get very close and see the craft that went into it. Again another no photos situation but where there is a William there is a way. (See photos)
After leaving Bayeux we went slightly north east to Arromanches, this was one of the landing places for Gold Beach, British, Canadian, Polish and other troops came ashore there. To be honest it was not one of the places I had heard of before and it was just sign posted so we headed there. This was fortunate because it was the site of the British Mulberry artificial harbour. After the debacle of the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 it was decided that trying to capture a port intact was too difficult and costly so for the Normandy invasion two artificial harbours were built in sections and floated across the channel, individual pieces made of concrete and weighing unto 7000 tons were connected together and sunk onsite. The British had one and the Americans the other, ours was best because we put it together properly and anchored to the sea floor, a massive storm hit both and the Yank one was lucky to survive.
So anyway we park the car turn the corner and there out to see are the remains of Mulberry, something I had read and seen in pictures but now in front of me. Of course after 70 years there is little left but you can see the rim and where it had been. Amazing, for some reason I completely taken aback that we had stumbled onto it. Many photos later.........
We also went to a new audio visual display called Arromanches 360 Cinema, a stunning presentation where the story of the war and D-Day are depicted on screens all around, very dramatic.
Next we drove through another "name" Carentan, which was a first day objective for the American 101st airborne division that were wrongly dropped around Sainte Mare Eglise, a small village some distance away. The strategic importance of Carentan was to join the two American landings of GOLD and UTAH beaches, because of the problem of dropping the guys in the right place it wasn't captured until June 9.
We got to Sainte Mare Eglise, I wanted to see the church tower that John Steele got himself hooked on and played dead for two hours while the fighting ranged around him. What I didn't expect was the dummy hanging by a parachute from the church tower, tourism will go to any lengths.
The is a large museum there dedicated to the American airborne divisions and it was quite interesting including one of the original gliders that landed that night in 1944, very small cramped and dangerous.
Time was drawing on and we had to make a choice on which beach to visit last and the nearest was UTAH so off we went. We had passed various places that I knew of, Pointe du Hoc was one, American Ranger forces scaled 300ft cliffs to reach several batteries of heavy guns that could have done a lot of damage on the beaches, but another day, you need several of them to see everything......
UTAH beach is a large expanse of beach at low tide about 5 km wide, it had the least number of casualties because it was lightly defended and some of the German troops had moved inland to fight the parachute landings.
Although there were lots of people on the beach including mussel farmers, paraglide carts and dog walkers we found it an erie place and it was hard to comprehend the mayhem and confusion that occurred that one day nearly 70 years ago, I suppose it is our innate sense of history, we have experienced it in many places now, from Dachau, Pompeii to Nelson's flagship the Victory, it's something very precious which I hope we never lose.
Tomorrow we set sail for England if the wind be fair, and the ferry engines work.....
