Normandy Beaches

This weekend was a trip to Normandy (in French - Normandie). Grant and Greg came along, and we planned to storm the WWII beaches in a frenzy of tourist activity. It did not start well, with a departure from Honda at 4:30pm (Junction 5 of the M4 motorway) on Friday afternoon, planning on arrival at the HoverSpeed terminal in Dover at 6:30pm. Unfortunately, the M25 was bumper to bumper, and we arrived at the terminal around 7:30pm, after touring Folkestone looking for petrol. Turns out we just missed the sailing by ten minutes as it had been delayed. So, we sat in the StandBy queue, chatting to two Germans desperate to get home after a sunless summer holiday in Scotland. We finally got on the final sailing of the evening at 10pm (it was a SeaCat instead of the HoverCraft) and found ourselves in Calais, all ready for a three hour drive to the F1 in Rouen. Yep, we got into Rouen at 3am, found the F1 and crashed.

Next morning we drove to the beaches starting at Sword Beach. Unfortunately we were in a French traffic jam for a good portion of the morning. The weekend continuing as it began. But, the museums kept us entertained and informed when we got there. Hordes of tourists (esp. Americans) were doing the same thing. Sword Beach was packed with lcoals and tourists sunning themselves and swimming. Grant did not get a true feel for the war effort from this pleasant beach. Too hot and too crowded. We tasted icecreams (this was before Grant had become a McFlurry addict) and ate ham and cheese baguettes. Mike drummed up a room for us in Cherbourg (at the tip of the peninsula) after going through most of the accommodation in the town. Lucky last. We drove past several other beaches in the direction of Cherbourg and dinner.

One of the most important sites was at Arromanches. Here we could see the surviving concrete caissons from the hilltop overlooking the area. The Allies had towed huge concrete blocks here from England and set up a temporary harbour to unload soldiers, machines and supplies. This was one of two sites this was tried, but one was destroyed soon afterwards by a big storm in the Channel. Here at Arromanches you can still see the one that survived for a few months. One concrete caisson is washed up on the beach at Arromanches and you can walk to it at low tide. So we did. And it was huge. It still had bollards on the top side for tying ships up alongside, even though they were rusted and seaweed encrusted.

The museum here is one of the best and we spent about an hour looking at many relics from the war. We may have spent more time, but there was a bagpiper playing inside and it was a bit deafening. I love the pipes, but they are best outside (or at least in a huge hall - not a small museum where you can't escape).

The hotel in Cherbourg was one room with a double bed and two single beds. We made a pact not to use the toilet as there was only a shower curtain separating it from the main room. We waited for Grant to shower and get ready, then we went out to find dinner. We found a quiet restaurant just off the main streets, and I had a nice confit of duck (same as Mike). Very yum! The conversation at dinner was deep, and Grant & I wandered back to the room afterwards and left Mike & Greg to continue their discussion over some beers.

Mike & Greg ventured home around 3am after a few drinks. Greg leapt onto Grant's bed to close the curtains, but apart from that everyone was sleeping like babes in a few minutes. Waking was a bit more difficult. We had McDonalds for breakfast, just to check that Cherbourg Maccas was the same standard as other places. Then it was back to attack the beaches from the opposite end. First up - Juno. They had an excellent museum there, and we went down to the beach which was a bit more deserted than Sword Beach.

Next, Point De Hoc where the rangers had to scale the cliffs to get at German gun emplacements. They lost a lot of men in the battle, but won in the end. Only to discover that the Germans had moved the guns already. I appreciated this site, as the holes made by bombardment were still visible and it meant the visual impact of the craters left more of an impression in your mind of the senselessness of war. Perhaps even more so than rows of crisp, clean, white marble crosses at the American cemetery we were about to visit. The reminder of how much damage can be done with a bomb is a necessary part of a war memorial. I'm not sure though, how much of a deterrent it is to those in power, as wars seem to go on regardless. Still, seeing these sorts of places makes me remember my country's sacrifice of its young men.

On to Omaha beach, shown in graphic detail at the start of Saving Private Ryan (although that was filmed on a beach in Ireland). This is where the American cemetery is also located, with the 9000-odd crosses I mentioned above. It is a lovely memorial site, with peaceful gardens and a lookout over the beach. There were many Americans here, no doubt here due to the exposure of an Oscar winning film. However, anything that gets this sort of place in the public mind is worth it. This beach unfortunately cost a lot of lives, as it was not as gently sloping as other beaches, and I believe the general in charge made some miscalculations which lead to a loss of backup tanks.

We decided to stay in Amiens this night, which we thought would be 1.5 hours drive away. This would leave us close to the Somme and the site of the WWI trenches. As New Zealand had been involved in this battle, we hoped to find memorials that would bring all the fighting closer to home, and more personal. We booked into another F1 (the worst one we have stayed at yet), but unfortunately it took us closer to 4 hours to drive there. I was hindered somewhat by not knowing the scale of the map I was using to navigate. It meant we got to the F1 at 1am, and we were all a bit worse for the wear (how we had found it was another surprise). I was surprised to see sheets piled up in the hallways when we trucked our pack up to our floor. It was an omen of poor management.

Next morning, I couldn't get a shower as several were broken on our floor. And then when we went down for our pre-paid breakfast, there was no bread and no jam. So, after complaining bitterly (well, I couldn't in French, but Mike did well, especially with the help of another slightly disgruntled Frenchman) we got our money back and we piled our luggage in der Bus and left. After Mike accosted an innocent Frenchman walking home with his armful of baguettes and got details of where he had bought his bread (Mike had shouted out of der Bus in his best French - "What shop did you get your bread from?" to which the Frenchman replied in perfectly passable English, directions leading back past the village town hall, turn left, turn right...."), we found a supermarket (although I suspect it was not where our innocent Frenchman had come from - but it served us OK). In fact, better than OK, as it cost us 20 F less than a breakfast at the F1, and we had juice, grapes, brie, baguette. Very nice.

Now we were off to look at the Somme. This was the Western Front, and nearly 1 million people died here. We had the New Zealand memorial on our list, but there were a few other points of interest to see along the way. First stop was the 'le Grand Mine' - a huge crater left by tunnelling Allies as they burrowed under German trenches and laid explosives to blow them up. Mike had to ask directions from an old local, who was pleased to have someone to chat to. He asked Mike if he was English, and said Mike spoke very good French when Mike told him we were from New Zealand. Mike had got into the French swing of things by this stage and was able to waffle away quite well to him. With our updated directions, we found the crater. The explosion was heard in London, and the resulting crater is huge. There were less crowds here, and we had the place to ourselves for the first few minutes.

Next stop was the memorial to Newfoundland soldiers. The reason we wanted to see this site was that it remained as it was when fighting finished (apart from grass now growing where I suspect only mud could be found during the crucial years). Trenches wound their way all over the place, and I was surprised to see that they zigzagged when I had visions of straight rows. But it makes sense to zigzag them, because you can defend corners, and shrapnel won't go around them.

Next, we found the British memorial. It was a very impressive monument, with 70,000 names of missing Brits written on the walls. 70,000 they couldn't find. Grant found a couple of Holdoms there in the register. I found a S Emmerson on the wall. Quite sobering to see so many names, and know that they had just disappeared in fighting, buried under mud or blown away without a trace.

After that, the plain, simple New Zealand memorial was touching. And we found the name of the cemetery where New Zealanders were buried here in France on the other side of the world, on an information board outlining the New Zealand campaign in the region. So, we went to Caterpillar Valley cemetery, where caterpillars fall out of the trees (and they were huge things, not to be messed with, as evidenced by Grant's yell of surprise when a big juicy one fell on his arm and then twitched violently (the caterpillar not Grant, although perhaps it is an accurate description of them both)). There were names from the Otago and Canterbury regiments on the walls, and headstones to many New Zealand soldiers only identified by their uniform ('Known only to God').

I think we all came away with a certain amount of pride in the way young New Zealanders had fought so far from home. To think that we (the equivalent of great grandchildren in the generations between us and them) could visit beautiful France, talk to locals, eat, drink and stay in the hotels, only because of their sacrifice. Such a notion must have been so far from their minds when they were fighting on the Somme. And so many of them never left. It was so sad standing there, reading their names. Wondering if anyone was left alive that thought about them, or if anyone had visited the place where a loved one was buried. Back then, it wasn't an easy matter to come to France from New Zealand to visit a grave.

Time to get back on the road and head for an hour up to Calais. We made the ferry crossing with only 4 hours to spare (we had learnt our lesson). Enough time to explore Cite Europe (a big shopping mall) and get as much cheap French petrol into der Bus as we could (yes, Mike got ten pounds in at a squash, even though it took us 30 minutes in the petrol station queue).

On home soil by 8:30pm English time (we managed to get a hour earlier ferry crossing), and in bed by midnight (after dropping Greg and Grant off we ran into multiple roadworks in west London!!). A very good weekend indeed.