Normandy

 

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Welcome to the Normandy page.
Here you can read the trip of someone for the ViE community his play name is Bagsy.
This is his trip to Normandy to the city of Caen.

Kind Regards Pierre aka Cyrus=DM=

 

Hi guys!
First I would like to apologize I could not join battle Wednesday night but I had to wake up very early as I was going with some Australian & US friends to… Normandy.

I have already gone there twice as every French kid does I guess but as friends were interested I decided to join on the trip. All the pictures you will see have been taken by myself or by a friend if I'm on the picture of course, on Thursday 21st of December 2006, none are from the internet. Some pictures were taken with a great Camera and some with my cell-phone.

 

Following is the trip we did:

Thursday the 21st of December 2006,
Paris, France - 0600 h

Wake up, shower, nicotine for breakfast, jump into subway heading to Parisian neighborhood to meet with my buddies ETA 0800 h.
RATP (company running the Parisian subway) employees are striking, again…

new ETA: 0830 h!
Finally arrival at “BougBi” where I meet up with C. French friend, his Australian cousins and a buddy from San Diego. Road trip to Caen is on! Almost 200 km or so until we reach one of the city of the Battle of Normandy.

 

A Mosin Nagant rifle mounted with scope. It was in the Stalingrad Battle section.

 Arrival at Caen – 1100 h
We are heading directly for the Caen Memorial.
The building is nice but all the flags are down as it was rainy in the morning. At the entrance, first thing you notice is the real Spitfire, it’s huge! Then we started the visit, which is great but not exceptional. I mean if some of you know the Army Museum in Paris Invalides, this is the best museum I ever saw concerning Army in general and its WWII section is really amazing. I have been there at least 10 times so I guess I was expecting a bit too much out of the memorial museum. Though I remembered it was greater from the previous times I went there. Anyway, here are some cool stuff I saw there:

Also I did not photograph the German Army moon boots they used in USSR but it was really funny, made out of straw…

 

Here is a US paratrooper parachute (front side)

Here is a US paratrooper parachute (back side)

 

1330 h, we are back in the car, starving heading for Arromanche-les-Bains and Gold Beach where we will find the Longues Battery.

1400 h, lunch stop at a diner, typical French “Charcuterie” and meal which sort of scared our foreigner friends (check out for “Tripes” traduction ). Anyway, great meal, some wine, beer … we were ready to move on.

1500 h the Squad is on the move!

1530 h, we arrive at the Longues Battery. However it was not the first time I saw these, it is always impressive to see how massive those bunkers are and how well conserved too. There are 4 bunkers with a 150mm Gun, 3 in a good shape and 1 totally destroyed.

 

So here we are at Longues, in front of Gold Beach (which was taken by the Brits! Actually here is a Wink for all [SAS] guys as it was the Devonshire Regiment which took off this battery). The battery Guns looks small on the picture but they gave hell back then. The thing is situated on Gold, the Canons could hit either Gold or Omaha beach which is not that close.

 

 



Here is one of the 150mm Guns:

 

 

Here is one of the bunker from the inside:

 

200 meters from the Battery is situated the Observation Bunker.

C. & A. on the little road to the Observation Bunker. Behind is one of the Battery Bunker.

C. & A. heading toward the Observation Bunker.

 

Here is the Observation Bunker, much closer to the beach than the others and without any gun and this is me by the way

 

Here is the top section of the Bunker with us looking at the sea. I guess that would have been the real observation point as you can see hell far away is every direction. Funny thing is this bunker is sort of buried into the ground while the others are just on top of it.

 

MG spot at the Bunker entrance.

C. surrendering after I invaded the bunker.

 

After a while freezing out we
decided to move to the American Military cemetery
which I had never been to.

1630 h, the American Military Cemetery
Following is the American Cemetery in the order we saw it.
On the huge peace monument is written this sentence:

It says:
“1941-1945
The United States of America
Proud of their son’s feats
Humble toward their sacrifices
Have raised this monument
In their memory”

 

The cemetery was empty; we were almost the only ones there. It’s a really nice place with the sea right next to it 20 meters away.
It’s really well taken care of.
There is a really special atmosphere going over, something really strong but not embarrassing. It’s very peaceful with the sea on one side,
a little windy and all these trees.

View of the cemetery from the monument.


 

The Peace Monument it self

Inside the Monument, a map of the military operations in Western Europe

 

Unknown soldier grave. I'm really proud of this picture

 

As the cemetery was closing at 1700 we moved out and went to Arromanche itself, right on Gold beach. There was a big flowers US 1st Inf. Div. avatar, as it appears they took this part of the beach (however I thought Brits and Canadians took Gold) so a little thought to the [US1ID] lads who fought in ViE#1.

Here is a little board explaining the battle over the beaches around Arromanche and how the WN62 strong point (a little upper the cliff behind) was solidly defended by 31 German soldiers. Spreaded over 2 bunkers, they used a 75mm gun, 2 50mm mortars, 2 50mm anti-tank guns and a double barrel anti-aircraft gun for the heavy armament. They also had 4 MGs.

Finally here is the same stronghold looked at from the sea, just where soldiers disembarked. It’s over 200/300 meters far I guess. Anyway, on the beach you always realize it better how it must have been a hell far away on that day.		 1900 h, heading back to Paris.
However it was not the first time I’ve been visiting Normandy, it always is interesting and unsettling. Every time I go there I get to see and learn new things. It is always deep of emotions. When you look at the beaches over there, you don’t need any movie to get how crazy it was.

I will try to make another one from another strategic location of WWII one of these days. Then I will manage to have time to write a more detailed and complete report cause I am really missing time here to show you guys everything.

I hope you enjoyed this little Report from Normandy. This was specially for all those who did not have the chance to visit our great country and who were wondering how it looks back there nowadays on the D-Day seacoasts.

Hail to the braves

Thank you for the great story and picture's of your trip to Normandy Bagsy.
My story will come also soon when I been there too.