Friday, April 25

We met at the school to collect our bagged lunches at 7:45 and then we went onto the bus.  Two hours later we arrived at Arromanches-les-Bains and began with a documentary film in a circular cinema.  The film, which lasted around 20 minutes, showed footage from D-Day and continued through the battle of Normandy.  We were able to see images of the war for the soldiers landing on the beaches, and also of the people who lived in Normandy at the time and who lost a lot during the bombardments.  We also learned about the emergency port that they built in one day at Arromanches.  They had boats from England that dragged floating pieces of the port across the English Channel, then they attached them all.  We had some time to visit the gift shop and to explore the area overlooking the town.  

Back on the bus we went to Longues-sur-Mer.  We were able to go into the remaining German bunkers and to imagine what it was like for the Allies to arrive at the bottom of the cliff and to have to climb up while being shot at by the Germans above.  It was foggy today, just like it was on June 6, 1944, and we could imagine the ships were able to get pretty close to the shore before the Germans would have seen them.  There were also beautiful canola fields there that we immersed ourselves into.  

We got back on the bus and drove a bit farther to Omaha beach.  We ate our picnic lunches in the grass or on the rocks at the beach.  

The bus drove us back up to the top of the cliff where we were able to visit the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.  The land at the cemetery was gifted to the Americans by the French and the French people do an amazing job maintaining the landscape.  We began with the wall of names of the people whose bodies were never found on D Day.  We then visited the cemetery, which is where 9,388 Americans who died on D-Day are buried.  There were 14,000 more Americans who also died on the beaches on D-Day, but their families in the US requested that their loved ones be sent home for burial.  

Our final stop was the Point du Hoc.  This pointed cliff, between Omaha and Utah beach, was a very important spot that the Allies needed to take to advance in the battle of Normandy.  The airplanes dropped countless bombs on this area and it is still evident in the landscape as you can see craters all over the top of the cliff.  The bombs were not able to stop the Germans from using machine guns and shooting at the US Army Rangers who tried to climb the cliff to take it over.  When they finally succeeded, there were only 90 out of 225 Rangers who had survived.