Monday, August 8, 2005

After a sobering morning at Omaha Beach, one of the D-Day invasion sites, James and I caught the bus back to a small town we’d passed through earlier, Port en Bessin. We may not have been saying much, still digesting what we’d seen and experienced at the American Cemetery, but our stomachs were certainly doing some talking and were ready to do some digesting of their own!

Port en Bessin is a tiny place, set a little ways up a hill overlooking the harbor. There’s a tower-like structure further up the hill to the east, and a drawbridge that allows boats to sail in and out of the marina. We visited a small grocery store on the western side of the bridge and bought the fixings for a feast: baguettes, salami, cheese and nectarines, along with zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes and pasta to save for dinner.

Port en Bessin, France

James and I waited to cross the waterway with the residents of Port en Bessin, waving at the passing boats. A young girl greeted us with “Bonjour!” There really isn’t anything quite as charming as children greeting you with accents and language foreign to you. During my first few days in England, when I was asking myself what exactly I had done by moving to a country I’d never even visited before, my doubts and questions melted a bit the first time I heard a child’s voice calling “Mummy!” When in self-doubt in a foreign land, listen to the voices of children.

James and I ate our salami and cheese baguettes on the hill overlooking the harbor, saving our nectarines for dessert. It was the most relaxing thing to sit in the sun feeling the warm sea breeze, watching the boats. Sitting on the hillside watching the residents of a tiny seaside town bustle about their daily lives, it began to really sink in that I was traveling.

Port en Bessin, France

We wandered around the streets for a little while, looking at the houses and shops and surrounding hills. The town was very picturesque, and looked exactly the way I’d imagined a French town would look. (Part of me wonders if this has anything to do with watching Snoopy cartoons when I was younger, particularly the ones where Snoopy is the Red Baron and they’re all staying in a chateaux. Those shows certainly influenced me more than they probably should have in other aspects - when I was in high school, I chose to take French instead of Spanish, even though Spanish would have been infinitely more useful to me in southern California.) Finding that a place looks just the way you’d imagined it has been quite a rare experience for me. The more time I spend imagining a place and all of its grandeur, the less it lives up to my expectations. The reality ends up rather, well, ordinary.

St. Andre, Port en Bessin, France

Before we caught the bus verts back to Bayeux and our campsite, we found a church to check out. One of my favorite things about Europe is the amount of churches that can be found, and how accessible they are. In a blur of candles, incense and marble, St. Andre’s stands out in my memories because it was filled with nautical items. Where you’d expect to find saints lining the walls, there were model boats. Holy water was contained in a huge clam shell. Being so close to the sea, it’s only natural that it should obviously have such significance in people’s lives.

Back at Camping Municipal de Bayeux, James and I set up the tiny camping stove we brought and began cooking dinner. (Well, James cooked, the gas canister stove terrified me. I had visions of accidentally starting a fire/explosion if I tried to use it.) Our pasta and vegetables eaten, we decided to explore a little during the last remaining hours of daylight and made our way to the Cathédrale Notre Dame. I took entirely too many pictures of its exterior.

Cathedrale Notre Dame, Bayeux, France

We returned once again to the campsite, ready to settle in for another cold night. This time I was prepared. I laid out extra tank tops, long-sleeved shirts, socks, scarf, sweatshirt and towel in the order I’d be layering them on throughout the night.

We would leave early the next morning, having never seen the famous Bayeux Tapestry.

Monday, August 8, 2005

I awoke tangled in a sleeping bag, travel towel and scarf, and sweating in my many layers of socks and tank tops. It was my first day in Bayeux, and James and I were on a mission.

Omaha Beach, Normandy, France

We had decided during our planning stages that we would visit the D-Day Beaches of Normandy. It would be an especially meaningful experience for both of us because our grandfathers had each taken part in the D-Day invasion during World War II. James’s grandfather was a tank commander for the British Army. He went ashore on Sword Beach during Operation Neptune in 1944.

My grandfather's flight log

My grandfather was a ball turret gunner on a B17 Flying Fortress called “Pretty Baby,” and flew two missions over the D-Day beaches, which my family discovered only recently. We have his flight log and there are two entries for June 6, 1944, both labeled “Invasion Coast, France.” He was stationed in England for part of World War II, and participated in over 30 missions between May and September of 1944. He flew over mostly France and Germany, but he also flew over Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Denmark a few times.

"Johnny and His 'Ball', 3-44"

My grandfather next to a ball turret on a B-17

Crew of Flying Fortress "Pretty Baby"

My grandfather is in the top row, second from the left

My mom tells me that her father never talked about the war, which I gather is pretty common. James’s grandfather rarely talked about his fighting experiences, only the camaraderie he felt with his fellow veterans.

My grandfather is on the right

James and I caught a bus from the Bayeux train station that took us through the French countryside toward the beaches. After what felt like forever, we took a chance and got off the bus. We wandered down the road and found ourselves at the American Cemetery on the bluffs above Omaha Beach.

American Cemetery, Normandy, France

No photos, movies or books could have prepared me for the sheer scale of white crosses and Stars of David. They went on forever, rows and rows of them. When you see the enormity of the memorials and realize that each white marble marker represents a person who was lost, and that there were many, many more beyond what you can see, it’s hard to not feel emotional. I saw a woman crying in the chapel, and many others with tears in their eyes. I wondered if they were searching for the graves of family members.

American Cemetery, Normandy, France

James and I wandered among the markers, reading some of the names, noticing the flowers left. Some graves had wet sand rubbed across the carved names, locations and dates, pressed into the letters and numbers so they could be read easily. This single cemetery contains the remains of 9,387 people. There are 13 more American World War II cemeteries on foreign soil*. That’s only American cemeteries. From that, just try and imagine how many were lost. It’s unreal.

We took the path down the bluffs and onto the beach itself. It was a beautiful day, with hardly any clouds in the sky. We could see beachgoers farther down the coast, and the wind carried only the faintest sounds of laughter over the surf. James and I were quiet. I think we were both lost in our own thoughts, imagining what it must have been like for other young people, two in particular, in the same place we were standing in 1944.

Omaha Beach, Normandy, France

*Figure taken from a leaflet prepared by The American Battle Monuments Commission, Normandy American Cemetery