Pointe du Hoc
Omaha Beach
Children were reluctant to do dumb war stuff and that was pretty hard to argue so we started with a visit to the beach itself. Not much to see as all the debris was removed in 1954. The original memorial where the shingle bank was is stunning, marking the leap into Europe. The stainless memorial on the sand, put in ten years ago, is pointless and adds nothing.
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| Display at Omaha Beach |
On the road we passed a private museum with a penetrated cloche outside. The violence of it shocked me. I imagine that it took the new
Firefly (rearmed Sherman Tank (thank you Tim for my tank knowledge)) to penetrate armour such as this.
Pointe du Hoc
Chose
Point du Hoc for a visit as it is pretty much as it was after it was destroyed. A large site with plenty of room for running around and exploring. The devastation left me in awe. The smaller craters left by the aerial bombing and the huge craters left by the large navel guns. These creatures were used buy the Rangers during their successful assault though only ninety survived out of the two hundred and twenty five that landed. While many of the bunkers were blown up, with twenty ton sections cast aside others were intact and we went down into many including magazines and accommodation blocks. One could still see the three high bunk bed mounts.
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| Pre War emplacement |
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| AA Battery |
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| Accommodation block entry |
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| Gun hole for protecting the entrance from inside |
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| Accommodation |
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| Destroyed emplacements |
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| 9" navel shell? These are everywhere |
It's Harris we have to thank for our tank knowledge. After capturing a working Tiger in North Africa (still at Bovington) in preparation for D day the British realised that the standard Sherman was hopelessly under gunned and fitted a new turret with a 75 mm gun. What's perhaps more sobering is the Sherman was easier to manufacture and they made 53,000 while only 3000 Tigers were made, thus the Allies could sustain the horrific losses. Grim business being a Sherman tank crew on D day.
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