From Bayeux on your Normandy Battlefields Tour, drive to Pointe du Hoc, via Sainte Marie du Mont, where the infamous German gun position threatened the Allied ships all the way to Utah and Omaha. The site was attacked by the elite 2nd U.S. Rangers, commanded by LT. Col James Rudder, who had to scale the cliffs to get there. The site with its huge fortification blown to pieces is still today as it was when the Rangers left it and looks like a lunar landscape.

Drive along the coast to Omaha Beach where soldiers of the 29th and 1st Divisions landed, fought and died. This operation was the bloodiest one of the 5 beaches and almost failed, but the bravery of those young men turned this operation into a victory. Overlooking the bluff is the American Military Cemetery, where 9387 service men rest in peace (keep in mind the movie “Saving Private Ryan”).

The Omaha Beach Museum, situated at one of the strategic beach exits, code named ‘Dog 3′ on D-Day, has on display a large collection of uniforms, vehicles and arms of all calibers as well as one of the types of landing craft used during the landings. You can also see examples of the military equipment lost by both sides on the beach and inland, which is still being found by locals today.

Last stop is the German Cemetery which initially started out as one of a number of temporary American cemeteries. After coming in through the narrow entrance you emerge into the very somber surroundings of this place. There are more than 21,000 soldiers buried here who paid with their life for Hitler’s order to ‘Never Retreat, Never Surrender’.

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Posted on April 10th, 2008. Filed Under France Attractions Category
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