We have an absolutely beautiful day for touring the D-Day beach sites today. Not a cloud in the sky. Our day starts out by heading to Arromanche where the Allies built a portable harbor to offload the tremendous amount of men and materiel needed to supply Operation Overlord. Two were built and were necessary because no natural harbor had been captured. Remains of this incredible operation are visible. From there we stopped at Longue-Sur-Mer to see the remains of four German gun batteries that fired on the allied troops trying to land at Omaha beach. These batteries were connected by an extensive set of underground tunnels. Next, we came to the sobering but impressive American cemetery located directly above bloody Omaha Beach. Here lies over 4,000 American soldiers who paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom. The following short hop was to Pointe-Du-Hoc where the cliffs overlooking the channel are the highest and demanded the most intense effort to conquer. Over 300 Rangers stormed the cliffs using London firemen's ladders and grappling hooks to get to the top. Less than 100 survived the assault. Lastly, we visited a German cemetery and found three Trautmann's buried there. Terry's biggest surprise touring the Normandy Beaches was how much bigger the whole area was than his conception of it from reading about it.
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| The American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France |
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| View from inside German Gun Battery looking out onto Omaha Beach. |
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| Cliffs at Omaha Beach which had to be scaled by the Rangers. |
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