THE LONGEST DAY

THE LONGEST DAY

This is a little joke because today we had an all-day excursion to the D-Day beaches. It was a very different kind of a trip.  First of all, we left early in the morning, 8 a.m. and because it was an all-day trip, they packed us a lunch. 

We had breakfast on the ship and then they packed the following per person, for lunch: Two sandwiches, a container of yogurt, apple, an orange, a fruit juice box, and a candy bar. When it got to be lunchtime, we were in a small town and they said we could go in a certain restaurant and as long as we bought a drink or something, we could eat our lunches there and use the restrooms. I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine anything more ugly american than that – especially in France. Zoe and I went to a restaurant and had Moules and Frites (mussels and french fries) and they were fabulous. I’ve always had them in a white wine sauce, but the specialty here is Normandy sauce, which is a cream sauce. We got one of each, because we didn’t know what the Normandy sauce would be like, but it was really good. And the mussels were so fat and juicy. Not at all like we get at home, where the mussels have been going to Weight Watchers for a month before you get them. And then we had them at the ship again tonight, as an appetizer, but the ship’s mussels had been on Weight Watchers. They were okay, but not at all like we got in the restaurant.

But I digress, we were at the Normandy beaches. This trip was kind of interesting and boring at the same time. It was definitely the guy trip. We had a guide from England for this one. He is a former history professor who has published nine books on the subject and is quite entertaining and very knowledgable.

The first place we stopped was to look at a bunker of some kind. I say of some kind because they all looked pretty much the same to me. I think he might have said one was a gun from a naval ship and the other was an artillery gun, but they were all just giant guns for which I had no frame of reference to make fine distinctions. And I couldn’t exactly hear him over the chattering of my teeth, since it was about 36 degrees out and we were standing in the wind looking at these bunkers. I was kind of amazed at how many people could have been inside them., though. I’m not sure why they needed so many guys, but based on standing inside, I’m sure that any of them who might still be alive had to have gone home deaf!!

Finally and blessedly they let us get back on the bus. But it was only to drive to an even colder place where we could stand on a high cliff and look down and far out to sea at (I think) some ships that had been sunk to create a pier or maybe a breakwater out from the beach. 

I wasn’t clear exactly what it was for and I noticed that when people asked questions, if he’d already covered it, he’d start out his reply by saying, "I already said that, but…" . They have headphones for us to listen to the guide, what with all of us being seniors who can’t hear very well, but when the wind is also blowing into the microphone of the speaker and the ear of the listener, much of what they say is lost. And did I mention my chattering teeth?

One of the things he might have told us was that they had this kind of a jury-rigged way of floating tanks in, and I think he said all the tanks were lost. The funniest thing he said was that when the Germans bombed, the English ducked, and when the English bombed the Germans ducked, but when the Americans bombed, everybody ducked. He said bombing wasn’t quite so accurate as it is now, where you send the bomb off down the street, and three blocks down there’s an unexpected lady crossing the street so the bomb stops and says "so sorry" waits for her to cross the street and then goes on down and into Sadam’s chimney.

At lunchtime I bought myself a new polarfleece jacket, so of course the

sun came out in the afternoon and it was relatively warm, but not so hot I’d take my nice, new, warm jacket off.  After lunch, we went to visit one of the American cemeteries. I think he said there are three of them in Normandy. They had a special service there just for us (but Grand Circle always tells you everything is special just for you, so I suspect they probably have this once a day and may run an extra one when they get a big tour group of Americans in.) Nonetheless, it was simple and nice. They had us face the cemetery where they have the flags flying and played the Star Spangled Banner on a carillon (which is something the SSB was NEVER meant to be played on),

then they had us turn the opposite direction and look at a statue called youth rising out of the waves while they played Taps. It was moving even though in my heart I knew it was corny. Made me feel all warm and Republican. Then they gave us each a flower which we were allowed to go put on any grave we wanted to, so we put ours on one of the unknowns. I looked for awhile to see if there might be one that was on my birthday, but even though there were dates ranging from 43 to 45, the vast majority of them were summertime. This whole operation, by the way, is funded by the U.S. Funny, I never hear that other party complaining about that. And also, once we got to the actual beaches of Normandy, it turns out that those beaches are eroding away and the US government has been shoring them up for years until (according to the guide) there are no more descendants. I could be wrong here, but there are a LOT of descendants of D-Day victims and survivors, so I’m hard pressed to think that time will ever come. I notice some of our French speakers sometimes have a bit of a problem with descendants vs. ancestors, but this guy was a Brit. 

After we finished that visit we took a brief visit to Omaha Beach which has a memorial on the land, and one a little ways out on the sand. I think the one on the sand was put there for the 50^th anniversary. I had some of Judy’s ashes with me and threw some out on the beach and put a little sand from the beach into the container to bring back. The first time she ever asked me to go on a trip with her was to go to the 40^th anniversary of D-Day, but I didn’t have a passport, so I couldn’t go. She was such a WWII buff that she would have loved this.

Our last stop of the day was a place whose name I can’t remember but was a cliff the army Rangers scaled to take out some big German guns. It was a dangerous mission, but when they got up to the top, they discovered that the guns had been removed and replaced with wooden guns. It later tuned out that the villagers had known and the resistance had reported that the Germans were removing the guns, and that aerial surveillance had probably shown it too. But if any of those responsible for planning the operation knew it, they neither acted on it nor admitted to having known of it afterwards.

This area contains a lot of big bomb craters all over. Gives you a much better sense of what was raining down on these soldiers. On our way home he routinely pointed out various places that had old tank traps, tanks, and many other things I can’t remember the names of – or get pictures of as the bus sped by them.

It’s getting near the end of our trip, so many days when we come back from an excursion, all the staff are lined up outside to greet us on our return, and you feel like you’re arriving at Downton Abbey. But I think the real reason is that it’s about time to make up tips for the crew, and they want us to be sure and notice how many crew members there are splitting these tips.