Normandy by Bicycle

On our first full day of biking, we made our way to Omaha Beach for a tour of the beach, fortifications, and memorials. Omaha was one of the two beaches where American soldiers waded ashore to heavy initial losses and established a beachhead on French soil. The picture above shows German fortifications for cannon that were capable of accurate firings up to a half mile away.o

Our guide reviewed the progression of the landings, the difficulties encountered, and the progress made. Some of our group walked down to the beach. This was followed by a walk back up the dunes to the American Cemetery above the beach.

The top photo shows the walk into the Cemetery, the second shows the Hall of Remembrance, and the third shows a small part of the Cemetery. Omaha Beach can be seen in the back of the third photo. Originally American dead were buried in a different cemetery. This site was established in 1956 and has roughly 18,000 American dead. One grave is a WWI veteran. The rest died during the beach landing. Last year, there were 18 additional funerals as the remains of soldiers continue to be found and identified. Families are then given the choice of having their loved ones returned home or buried at Normandy. The Cemetery contains roughly 180 acres of graves.

A few comments about visiting Normandy… First, it is hard to imagine these beaches being fully immersed in landing craft. The American landing forces numbered over 100,000 troops. And that number does not include the naval forces the made the landing possible. I tried to imagine what German defenders must have felt watching such an army come ashore.

Despite this size, the invading corps had major problems with currents blowing their landing crafts off course. Many of the American soldiers had not yet seen live action, and suffered huge initial casualties. By the end of the first day, the American soldiers had established a tenuous beachhead. But it took a week for the five beach groups to unify their positions on shore.

The Cemetery is immaculately kept and seems almost holy. A very stupid comment was made by our President, who really did not want to visit here, that the cemetery was full of “ suckers and losers. “ I am reluctant to use the word “ hero. “ Rather it seemed to me the the Cemetery contained young men who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and were probably scared shitless. I felt honored to spend a little time with them.

The singer – songwriter John Gorka may have summed it up best when he found a poem called “ Let Them In “ and put it to music. It can be found on his “ The Company You Keep “ album.

Our day ended by biking back to our hotel and having great discussions about the day at dinner.

The next two days brought more bike rides that skirted some of the other landing beaches. This is one of my favorite pictures. I snapped it above Gold Beach, one of the two British landing beaches, depicting a British soldier with the Union Jack in the background. This observation post also housed a 360 degree film of actual footage.

The riding was relatively easy with rolling hills and lots of country roads with sparse traffic. We could push ourselves as hard as we wanted. I took one afternoon off and hung out at our hotel hot tub to get ready for the local brews at dinner !!