musings on normandy & lion sur mer

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Thursday
It’s only when you get there that you realise the scale of the D day landings. Imagine landings at 5 different points each of about 20km in length between Woy Woy and Nelson Bay. Imagine the planning needed to organise for 2 artificial harbours made of concrete to be constructed and floated over from Britain by the 3rd day so that supplies for the more than 1 million men who were put ashore in the first month can be maintained.
And imagine the horror of the first wave of men as they moved ashore.
This has been quite a profound experience. As we drove around, the most moving moment i think was to visit the war cemetery at Bayeux. There are mostly Canadians and brits there but a sprinkling of Australians. Most poignantly those airmen who died in the one plane have their headstones joined together so they sit side by side. There are poles and czeks, jews and muslims, merchant navy and royal navy. But they are mostly young
“it’s always the old that lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall.” – Phil Ochs
But what stood out for us was that there was a section allocated to the German war dead. Given the animosity of the war we found this quite a magnanimous gesture for the British to include their enemies. As Kenneth Slessor said it they are now “join(ed) .. together enlisted on the other front.”

One of the joys of travel is that there is always the unexpected little gem that you could never plan for. Port-en-Bessin-Huppain is a small town at the eastern end of Omaha beach. We were looking for somewhere to have lunch. We had intended to visit a number of musees until we realised they were privately run cowboy affairs in the main. Anyway the villages are so small that they did not have a boulangerie where we could buy a baguette and a drink which is our standard fare for lunch. So we headed to PeBH and it was just delightful. Lovely little harbour and an old fort. We spent an hour just wandering talking to fishermen (but not being able to reply to their rapid fire French) and just enjoying the beautiful cloudless 26˚ day.
Time out to recount some other stuff that i missed.
When we arrived in Caen, we picked up our car and renewed our relationship with “Clare” our GPS. 45 minutes later and Clare and we weren’t on speaking terms. Fortunately she saw the error of her ways and decided to cooperate and has been quite a faithful servant ever since.
Our hotel in Lion sur Mer is terrific. Clean airy, bright with a view over the village. The first night we ate an excellent pizza at one of the 3 restaurants in town. The second night we had an even better meal at the local tavern. Most meat dishes were cooked with calvados the local brandy.
Each night we have had a wander after dinner to the beach before heading home.

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