June 28th---
"All my days run together, like whiskey and coke..." ~"If" by R5
Each day has been unique, yet, without this blog, that quote would be so relevant. Thank goodness I decided to do this.
So...I think we were supposed to have some kind of a test today. We were supposed to, but...
We have had two French teachers, okay? And the first one would teach us, like, Monday through Wednesday, or so, and the other would teach the rest of the days. For instance, teacher 1 taught Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after our break, and teacher 2 taught us Wednesday before the break, Thursday, and Friday.
And...teacher number 2 didn't give us the "quiz" that teacher number 1 said that we were going to have to do. We are all so confused, even teacher number 2.
So, maybe I'll be taking a "quiz" tomorrow morning. Or maybe not? I don't know...
The history kids: We went on our last little "excursion" today. It is a little bittersweet.
I just want to warn you before I start: these are probably the worst pictures I've taken. It was raining on and off today, and taking pictures while holding an umbrella takes special talent. Our guide, Patricia (yes! The same guide we had on our first "excursion" for history class), said "Ah! You get the same weather as the soldiers on D-Day today!" Yep: rainy and cold...well, it was cold near the English Chanel anyway. It's amazing how the Channel and Atlantic can make it colder.
First stop: La Cambe
La Cambe is one of the German cemeteries in France. It is located near Bayeux in Normandy. This is the plaque hanging on the wall of the entrance. Don't ask me what it says...I don't know German. If I had to guess, I'd say it says something like "German Soldiers "La Cambe" German Military Cemetery 1939 - 1945" Hey...I think that is what it says. I think my German isn't bad since I've seen it so often at the monuments and the museums here.
Yes: 1939 - 1945 are the dates. There are soldiers that are buried there who were killed in this range of dates. Soldiers that were killed by the French Resistance in 1939 through the entire war...not just the Battle of Normandy.
The entrance of the German cemetery has a special meaning. The door is large enough for only one person to enter at a time. There isn't any way someone can enter two by two. Maybe if you were toddlers. Maybe. This is to symbolize how a soldier has to face his own death alone. Yes, people die at the same moment, but, to us still living, it is easy to imagine that you are alone for a millisecond when you die. Of course, this isn't what I personally believe. But I can appreciate symbolism. I actually really like that they did this.
The door leads us into a small building. Passed that door, but before entering the cemetery itself, there are two rooms, one on the left and one on the right. We went into room on the left first. Inside was information about the cemetery:
Let me explain. So, there was a private association in Germany created after WWI in order to bury the dead. The name is Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraberfursorge (excuse the American keyboard without all the accents on the last word), called the VDK for simplicity. This association would take care of all deceased military personnel. When Hitler came into power, he oppressed this association and eventually made sure that it was terminated. After WWII, it restarted and helped bury all those in the German army throughout Europe. Thus, the plaque above, written in French, German, and English (but I only captured the French and English portion so that we can clearly see what it says). Yes: the VDK is called the "German War Graves Commission" in English.
An interesting, and sad (in my opinion), fact: the VDK pays for pretty much everything for the German cemeteries: burying the soldiers and the upkeep of the cemeteries. The German government has only given 3% of the needed funds for the cemetery. I just find this disappointing...
On one wall, there is a display showing multiple German cemeteries. Unlike the American cemetery and the British and Canadian cemeteries, no German cemetery looks alike. If you go to a British cemetery, you need to tell someone which one you are at...they look the same. If you go to a German cemetery, there is no need. They look so different, as you can see from the pictures included below.
Oh, just so you know, the plaque in the middle says (in all three languages) "'The soldier's graves are the greatest preachers of peace."' said by Albert Schweitzer.
Although it is about 70 acres, there are about 21,000 German soldiers buried in the cemetery. To give you an idea of how amazing this is: the American cemetery is about 172 acres and has 9,387 soldiers buried there.
Allyson, how is this possible?!
Patricia was such a fantastic guide, I'm telling you! So many good details and facts.
So, there are around 21,000 German soldiers buried there. This is because when everyone was burying the soldiers in their cemeteries (exhuming them from the ones by the road or where they had died and moving them into the permanent cemeteries where they rest today), the Allies were more worried about taking care of their soldiers first. Understandable...but...
Okay, so this German cemetery is located at what used to be a temporary American cemetery. So, the Americans were exhuming all the bodies, getting the American soldiers to where they needed to go (the American cemetery or sent back home) and just letting the German bodies pile up.
When the VDK finally got itself together and went to work on burying the German soldiers in 1961. And all that was left of the soldiers were their uniforms, their dog-tags (more on this later...there's a sad story about the dog-tags of some of the German soldiers...), and bones. The bones were placed in really tiny coffins...I think Patricia said that they are about 7 centimeters long. So, the coffins could be lined up right next to each other really closely. More on this later.
Back to the tour:
On the opposite wall, there was a map of the cemetery. It is incredibly hard to find a specific soldier in the cemetery (except for one, but more on that later). The graves aren't marked with their numbers very well and it gets really muddy in the graveyard.
We then went to the room on the right side of the building. In this room, people can find the two books that list all of the soldiers in alphabetical order, making it easier to find specific soldiers.
Below, Patricia is actually closing the cabinet after showing us the books. The words around it are in German, and I don't remember what she said it says...
Dried flower wreathes left in memory of the fallen German soldiers:
My first view of the graves. See the five crosses everywhere?
At the end of WWI, the Germans were forced to pay for the burial of everyone. Not only that, they had to give their soldiers (and the other losers of the war) gravestones that were dark, making them different from the white ones given to the winners. The same is true for the WWII cemeteries: the Allies have white headstones, the Axis Powers: dark brown, gray, or black.
Below, you can see that under this headstone there are two soldiers buried: Corporal (GEFR) Max Lazar and Corporal Heinz Lohmann. Also listed on the headstone are the dates of birth and death. But don't be confused. In Europe, they list the day first, not the month: 23/6/21 - 22/7/44 instead of 6/23/21 - 7/22/44.
A grave of an unknown soldier. If the soldier is unknown, they are buried alone. Except for one (huge) instance...but I'll get to that story in a minute.
There weren't many flowers at the cemetery. Not surprising. But it is nice that Normandy (and ALL of France) does honor the soldiers of all sides. Normandy takes considerable measures to keep the peace. And we have to remember: a lot of soldiers in the German army didn't actually want to fight.
Actually, only 25% of the soldiers buried in this cemetery were truly German. The rest are Polish, Russian, Austrian, and other allies of Germany or countries that German had overtaken before the end of the war.
Here is a view of the mass grave and the main statues in the cemetery, which is a cross (obviously) and a man and a woman looking down on the graves. The man and woman are supposed to be parents, who are looking out at their children. Patricia said that this is symbolic of the people who fought in WWI and then had to endure watching their children fight another world war.
A close-up of the man and woman. Upon closer inspection, it looks more like it's Mary and Jesus (or maybe even Joseph? No...I'm pretty sure it's Jesus). Maybe I didn't understand Patricia? Or maybe she just didn't want to talk religion (as the French do not like to do this).
Okay, now I'll tell the story about the "unknown" soldiers that don't have their own headstone. The mass grave, which the statue is on top of...yes, that entire mound:
The story goes like this: remember how the Americans were exhuming every body in order to take care of there comrades, sending them home or to the official, permanent American cemetery? And it got to be so late that there were only bones of the soldiers (hence, the small coffins for the Germans in this graveyard) ?
Well... if there are only bones, the only way to identify anyone was the dog-tags.
One night, an American soldier got really drunk. And drunk people do really stupid things. This drunk soldier took all of the dog-tags off of a pile of 196 "German" bodies.
Simply horrible. Horrible.
What to do? They knew the names of the soldiers, but not who was who.
It was decided that there would be a mass grave for theses soldiers and their names would be on plaques, which go all the way around the mound, except for the part which is the stairs leading up to the "observation" space next to the statues on the top.
One of the plaques on the mass grave. This one listed three soldiers on it:
The flowers in front of the mass grave:
View of the back of the graveyard from the top of the mass grave:
The front of the graveyard:
A headstone with three soldiers:
An unknown soldier and a soldier with only the date of death:
A headstone of five soldiers (I didn't see many of these):
A headstone for soldiers that died in 1946 (three of them) and one in 1949.
Heinz Gnibl, the last name on this headstone who died in 1949 has a sad story. He was the last soldier to be buried here.
Heinz had survived the war. He was forced to stay, with the other Germans who survived, to help clean up Normandy. Because he had no family back in Germany and his home was destroyed, he decided to stay longer than required and keep helping. He would look for mines and help a farmer clean his fields.
Then, one day, he bought a train ticket to go back to see the village where he was born. But the train didn't leave until late in the day. So, he was at the farmhouse. And in the backyard, there was a huge pile of leaves. He decided, then, to clean up this last pile for the farmer. Under the leaves, though, was an un-exploded shell, which killed him.
They found his train ticket in his pocket.
A soldier who died in 1940:
The most visited grave in the cemetery.
Okay, this is a scary story to think about:
This is the grave of Michael Wittmann and his fellow soldiers. Wittmann was a Tiger tank ace. When they were killed, the bodies were buried under a random tree a few feet away from where their tank was hit. They remained there, unknowingly to the world, until the 1980s, when the French wanted to make their road larger. The bodies were discovered and placed in the cemetery. They were identified by their teeth.
Why is Wittmann frequently visited...the most visited grave? Why is it that Wittman's headstone was stolen just last month, and had to be replaced (you can tell, because his headstone isn't as dark as his comrades) ? Because it is known for a fact that Wittmann was a Nazi.
Yes. There are Nazis/Nazi sympathizers still around that love what they had been fighting for.
And, for me, that is scary to think about...
(Picking up to write on the 29th here)
The location of the German Cemetery, La Cambe, is not nice compared to the American, British, and Canadian cemeteries; it's just on the side of the road. And the only thing that really separates it from the road are these thick trees. The trees were bought by the families of the German soldiers in the cemetery. At the time, they cost about 370 euros. About 10 euros went to planting the trees, and the rest was/is used for the upkeep of the cemetery itself. Each tree has a little green plaque with the donator's name, the date the tree was planted, and the soldier it was planted in memory for (including their date of death). You can't really see it in the picture below, but I promise that there is one for every tree.
Next stop: Point du Hoc
And this is when the rain really started for me. Time to get out the umbrella and think, "Huh. I'm getting to experience D-Day weather." Which, by the way, Patricia affirmed. D-Day weather. Nasty.
Point du Hoc was ESSENTIAL to take over on D-Day. Why? Well, Point du Hoc is on a cliff in between Omaha and Utah beach. The Germans could open-fire on the Americans who were landing on those beaches: that is why it was so hard for the troops to push forward on those beaches.
So, on D-Day, James Earl Rudder (American) lead the Ranger battalions under his command to Point du Hoc to take it over. Before they came, they trained to scale the cliffs with ropes and grappling hooks in one minute.
I have the image of Wesley in The Princess Bride right now. Too bad it wasn't as easy for the Rangers.
Problems for the Rangers can be summed up: the weather. It was windy and rainy. They were blown off course a little and had do push (but, I don't think literally) their boat(s) upstream against the water in the Channel.
And the rain. The rain basically was their worst enemy. Because of the rain, their uniforms and equipment became extremely heavy. Even though they had trained to climb the cliffs in 1 minute, it took them 30 minutes.
30 minutes climbing that cliff while the Germans are shooting at you. Not good, not good, not good.
So, when they finally arrived at the top, they couldn't really use their guns because of the rain. They couldn't signal to the other troops that were going to help them because of the rain. They had trouble blowing up everything with their dynamite because of...you guessed it...the RAIN !!!!
Back to signaling to the troops: so, there were going to be at least two waves of Americans to take over Point du Hoc (but I think there were three planned. I just can't remember...it's been 24 hours since I was there, okay!). The first wave was with Rudder. They would land and send a flare up to signal to the next wave that they had succeeded. Then the second wave would come and help support them. If they didn't succeed and the second set of troops didn't see a flare, they were to land on Omaha.
Rudder and his men eventually did send up a flare. But the darn rain (I'm sure that the soldiers used worse words after the fact). The rain made it so that the second wave couldn't see the flare. So, Rudder and their men were on their own. The other troops left and landed on Omaha, thinking that Rudder and the other men didn't succeed.
I've now decided that it's picture time! Even though these aren't exactly in timeline order. They are in the order which I took them (yesterday), though.
The first one is of one of the guns that the Germans used at Point du Hoc. The thing is, the guns were from WWI. And, when Rudder and his men finally gained ground and the Germans realized that they were going to be defeated, they moved the guns away from the site.
The war just got even more complicated for Rudder. Now he didn't know where the heck the guns were located. Were they pointing at him and his men?
Nope. They were being moved by horses. This was discovered by scouts a few days later because the ground at Point du Hoc is basically clay. And there were still prints of the horses and the wagons used to move the guns...so one guy decided to follow them. Good idea. Bravo.
One of the shelters of the guns: a casemate. (I have better pictures at the next stop...you'll understand better later)
One of the craters still here from the bombings of the Allies. Before D-Day, remember, there were several aerial bombings, trying to take out German defenses here. It is bigger than it looks.
Okay, now I can start to explain these shelters for the guns a little. Originally, the guns were just on a platform. They could be spun around and shoot 360 degrees...in other words, in any direction. But the Germans knew that they needed to protect their guns from bombings. So they constructed these casemates...or little rooms to protect the guns. This is the front of the casemate. The gun's barrel would hang out where that couple is standing...now that I look at them, they are probably having their picture taken. I thought, at the time, they wanted to get out of the wind. I'm so dumb sometimes...
Anther point I need to make: the Germans were planning to build all six casemates, but, because Eisenhower decided not to wait and land on June 6th, only four casemates were finished. Something in the American's (and the rest of the Allies') favor.
Where the gun would sit. Yep, it's been raining here.
Right next to the casemate are little bunkers, like this one, where the Germans would go for protection when there was an air raid.
This is a close up of where the start of the barrel would sit in the casemate.
The back of the casemate. Actually, this particular casemate had been successfully bombed before D-Day. So, it's falling apart faster than the others...
The bomb that dropped on the casemate sent the gun in all directions. Across the little road, the bottom piece, which the gun sat on so that it would swivel, landed.
The landscape. Can you see that crater on the right?
One of the German command posts a long way from the road. So, when the German soldier stood behind the gun, they could see Nothing. On D-Day, they were just shooting blind. Then, when everyone got a little more "in the zone", the Germans from this bunker (and a second one too) would radio back the coordinates so that the Germans could fire more accurately at the Americans on the beaches.
The view from the top of one of the "command" bunkers:
Inside the bunker there is a list of all the Rangers under Rudder's command:
And a plaque for Rudder:
"On June 6, 1944, Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder (1910-1970), a native Texan, led companies D, E, and F of the United States Arm's 2nd Ranger Battalion in the capture and neutralization of the German Coastal Battery at Pointe du Hoc. Accomplishment of the mission, which included scaling the Point's rocky cliff, was seen as crucial to the success of the Allied Forces invasion of Normandy and eventual liberation of France. The original 225 Rudder's Rangers fought two and one half days before reielf. 90 men survived the mission."
A room in the bunker, with a slit window overlooking the cliff:
Close-up of the window:
The Memorial at Point du Hoc is meant to look like a dagger, because the Rangers were forced to fight with their daggers in hand-to-hand combat with the Germans. Because their guns wouldn't work. Stupid rain.
Another large crater:
The sign at the entrance of Point du Hoc:
There are several, individual signs with details of the specific rangers lined up along the road to Pointe . I got a picture of it while I was leaving, because when I was coming in, there were a LOT of people standing all around it.
Last Stop (of my entire time in France...): Longues-sur-Mer
Although Point du Hoc is interesting to visit because it was the site that Needed to be overtaken, Longues-sur-Mer battery is interesting because the actual guns used in the Battle of Normandy by the Germans are Still There. That was so cool to see.
Each casemate and gun is in progressively better condition. The best pictures are last, just so you know.
First casemate and gun. It is so damaged that there is wire around it so that tourists don't go inside. The structure may fall at any time.
The next casement and gun. Here you have a better idea of what it was like at Point du Hoc. Except, here at Longues-sur-Mer, there were WWII guns, not WWI.
These bullet holes are interesting. Why? Because the bullets went out from the inside! See that? The gun had protection on the sides, but not at the top. So, we think that the bullets went over the gun, hit the back wall, and then went through the gun here:
The back of the gun. If you look at the bottom, you can see that swivel piece that is similar to the one that had been blown across the road at Point du Hoc.
Next gun:
In better condition at the back too:
In the walls of the casemate, there are these holes, to let out all the smoke that the gun would emite when it has been fired.
There were two storage rooms back behind the gun for the ammunition:
The view the German soldier had when firing the gun. See why they needed to be told where to fire?
A German footprint is still there, because some stupid soldier stepped in the wet concrete while the casemate was still being constructed.
The top of the casemate:
The view from beside the casemate's roof (on a hill):
See the other casemate?
The back of the first casemate we saw. You can tell that it was bombed from the back.
A piece of the casemate that had flown away because of the bombing.
Distance between the casemate and the piece that flew away during the bombing.
And, on the way back to Caen, we were given a quick bus-tour of Bayeux. Here is the Cathedral, which also is the cathedral for Caen as well. (There isn't a cathedral in Caen)
The memorial for Eisenhower in Bayeux.
And the road that we mostly drove on in Bayeux was the one that the Allies had made during their travels to Caen. They made a bypass around Bayeux, because the streets in the city were too small and curvy for the tanks and other vehicles. So they made a dirt by-pass around the city. And the French people there complained that the vehicles kicked up too much dust. There was about 7-10 centimeters of white dust on the trees and plants and whatnot all over the city. But seriously? The Allies are working to liberate France, and you need to complain about the dust? (Shaking my head and sighing). The French. Love 'em, hate 'em. A complicated people, then and now.
I got home from our excursion extremely tired. And hungry. I have to think that Colette was surprised at how much I ate...because it was more than I usually do. I ate almost like a Frenchwoman. Almost. Not quite.
Then, I started my blog post and didn't even get to that stopping point before 11:30. So, here I am during Day 19, finishing Day 18.
Who knows if I'll get today's post done before I go to bed. Because, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be a long, busy night. I have a school event and a play to go to.
So...yeah. Write to you later.
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