Normandy

TO ALL

When I think about our trip to Normandy (March '08 - almost a year ago now), the first thought that comes to mind is that the weather was nasty – snow, heavy rain, fierce wind, drizzle – you name it, it happened in those 4 days. And yet . . . . .somehow, the weather didn’t seem to dampen our spirits significantly and at the end of the day (or the trip, in this case) we saw everything we intended to see. How did that happen? I’m not sure. Ironically, there are a bunch of good museums in Normandy, mostly* related to WWII, and we didn’t set foot in a single one. So I guess that just confirms that the weather wasn’t impossible -- or maybe that we are a little daffy, depending on your frame of reference!

It’s about 8 hours by car from Frankfurt to Normandy. In contrast to the trip I related in my last travelogue, this trip was not efficient or cheap. In Normandy, somehow airport locations, flight schedules, and prices don’t seem to come together in any way that makes flying seem like a good option, so we ended up driving. In doing so, we spent upwards of $500 on gas and tolls! Ouch! We also used up a day and a half of our precious 4 day weekend just getting to and from our destination. Ouch again! But such is life.

Our lodging for this trip was an E-tap Hotel in Saint Lô, France. Etaps are part of the Accor Hotel chain (which also happens to own Motel 6). We’ve used them on a number of occasions in Europe and have found them to be a good deal. Etaps are on the opposite end of the spectrum from German pensions in terms of ambiance and aesthetics but somehow budget has a way of worming itself into things at times whether we want it to or not. As much as we paid for gas, we should have slept in our van and gotten our money’s worth out of that expensive drive, but we didn’t. Somehow camping isn’t too appealing in March and Etaps are a good excuse not to do it.

I was in Normandy for about 24 hours in March of 2006 with Deanna and 60 of her best friends from Covenant High School, Tacoma, WA (see May 2006 - Great Britain Historical Tour). Mike was not able to join us for even that short segment of Deanna's trip. The Army had other plans for him. When I have occasion to go places without Mike, I don’t necessarily feel compelled to go back with him, but in this case there were a couple of good reasons to return: (1) there were two sights that Covenant High School didn’t include in their itinerary that were really appealing to me, and (2) much of what there is to see in Normandy has to do with WWII and D-Day and it seemed a shame for Mike to miss that entirely.

We did this trip on the heels of Mike returning from a TDY in the States. In fact, I picked him up at the airport in Frankfurt on a Friday morning, sleep-deprived and jet-laggy, and we took off from there without even going back to Heidelberg. We arrived in St. Lô after dark on Friday evening.

On Saturday we went back to three places I had already visited with Deanna’s class: Sainte Mare Eglise, Pointe du Hoc, and Omaha Beach American Cemetery. Since I’ve already written about these in another blog, I’ll limit myself to just a couple of brief notes about Pointe du Hoc: (1) the wind was unbelievable (not just “bad” as it was when I was there before!). We didn’t dare venture anywhere near the edge of the cliffs for fear of being blown off. It was only with great difficultly that I was able to brace myself firmly enough to get any pictures that were worth saving, (2) By chance, a couple of the pictures that did turn out give some perspective on the depth of the craters left by the American naval artillery barrage.
The highlight of the day on Saturday was a visit to the little town of Arromanches, a place I did not go with Deanna’s class and one that had a pretty significant, but not so well known, role in the events of D-Day. Here’s the scoop: In order for any invasion of Europe to succeed, the Allies knew that they had to have a means of landing and handling huge amounts of material and supplies. In August of 1942, the Canadian army made an unsuccessful raid on Dieppe, France, hoping to gain control of its harbor. The loss of lives was huge, but it was not entirely in vain, in that it alerted the Allies to the fact that they were not going to be able to capture an already working harbor. They were all too heavily fortified. Churchill came up with the idea of creating prefab harbors, called “Mulberries.” One of the locations that was chosen was Arromanches and since the idea was Churchill’s brainchild, the harbor that was created there was called Port Winston.

The plan was quite elaborate. Each harbor was to include 4 steel roadways (code-named 'Whales') that floated on steel or concrete pontoons (called 'Beetles'). Each of these roadways were a mile in length. Antiaircraft guns were set up on the pontoons. The roadways terminated out in the ocean at great pierheads, called 'Spuds', which rested on the seafloor and were jacked up and down on legs depending on the tide. These structures were sheltered from the sea first by a line of football-field-sized cement blocks (called 'Phoenixes') which were towed across the channel and sunk. Beyond the Phoenixes were a line of old ships (called “Gooseberries) which crossed the English Channel under their own steam and were sunk by their crews bow to stern. Beyond that was another line of floating breakwater (called 'Bombardons'). These were made of steel. Altogether the Phoenixes, Gooseberries, and Bombardons created a 4 mile long, semi-circular, breakwater 1.5 miles off shore, enclosing an area the size of the port of Dover.

By the end of Day Six of the Normandy invasion, 54,000 vehicles, 326,000 troops, and 110,000 tons of goods had been delivered ashore at Arromanches. Did you catch that? In SIX days, the sandy beach of Arromanches had been transformed into a port the size of Dover, a port that had taken 7 years to build. Eisenhower described the whole idea as, “a project so unique as to be classed by many scoffers as completely fantastic.” Apparently there were initially two of these harbors: one at Arromanches and one at Omaha Beach. However, the one at Omaha Beach was not securely anchored to the seabed and a storm took it out 10 days after it became operational. The Mulberries were designed to last for only 3 months but the one at Arromanches was still working 10 months later. It is commonly held up as one of the best examples of military engineering and its remains are still visible today from the beach at Arromanches.

OK, so here’s a piece of one of those roadways. Picture a mile of this stuff stretching out into the ocean and ending at a large pier where a huge military ship is anchored. And then picture one military vehicle after another driving the length of that “roadway” onto the beach. And then multiply that by four because there were 4 such roadways at Arromanches.

Now here’s the beach at Arromanches. You can see the remains of some of those piers (both in the foreground and in the distance).Now here’s what the water looked like at Arromanches the day we were there. It’s not hard to imagine why the one at Omaha Beach didn’t make it through that storm.OK, so I’m not really a big WWII buff, but every time I learn a little more about the Normandy invasion, I’m just amazed all over again. Obviously not everything went as planned and there were problems with parts of the plan, but all in all it’s a pretty impressive story. As we explored Arromanches, I found myself asking two questions: (1) Are we as Americans capable of doing anything today that is “so unique as to be classed by scoffers as completely fantastic”? and (2) How does one live daily surrounded by WWII remains and memorabilia and supported by tourist dollars (as are most of the inhabitants of those Normandy towns) and then thumb one’s nose up at Americans? I know, I know . . . it’s a different generation both in France and in the US. And the US isn’t exactly the same now as it was then -- either politically or morally. But still . . . . I can’t help but wonder.

Before I leave Normandy there is a rabbit I can't resist chasing. I hope you can bear with me. In my first Normandy blog, I mentioned that my mother was engaged to someone who was shot down over Germany during WWII and that I had no idea if his body was ever recovered and/or where he was buried. Well, as our time in Europe went on, I found myself wondering about that every time I had occasion to visit an American cemetery (and there are a bunch of them in Europe!). Eventually it occurred to me to see what I could find out on Google. I am pretty impressed with the results. Here's what I knew about this guy when I started my investigation: his name was Bernie (was that his first name? last name? or nickname?). He was a pilot. He was in the reserves when the US entered the war and was activated immediately. He taught at a flight school somewhere in California for a year or more before deploying. He was flying sorties out of London when he was shot down. And he was from South Dakota. Not much, huh? In Googling around I came across a list of all military personnel from South Dakota who were killed in WWII. The list was not so incredibly long that I couldn't look at every single name. Amazing enough there was only one officer with either Bernie or Bernard as a first OR last name -- presumably pilots are always officers. The full name was Bernie V. Guthrie and further Googling revealed that he was from Murdo, South Dakota and was a professor at SDSU which is where my mother went to college. SDSU is in Brookings, SD and my mother taught school in Brookings after she graduated from SDSU. She was teaching school when her fiancée was shot down. I ran across some records of the unit that Bernie was assigned to and then finally a paper written by some high school kid in Rapid City, South Dakota that basically told the story. Only one of the pilots in Bernie's squadron returned from the sortie in which Bernie went down. Here's what that pilot reported to Bernie’s brother about what happened:

"We accompanied the bombers over Hamm (Germany) and the Mustangs were supposed to pick them up but were late. We were attacked by a big force of Germans and were so badly outnumbered that it was pitiful. The last I heard from Bernie was when he called me on the intercom saying that Lieutenant Stanton was in trouble and that he was going down to help him and for me to keep the boys together. I saw Stanton with two Germans on his tail and I saw Bernie get one German plane. Just then we were hit by another big flight of Germans. That was the last I saw of either Capt. Guthrie or Lieut. Stanton. Captain Guthrie had a reputation for bringing back his planes, having brought back five so badly shot they were never repaired. He brought back a plane on only one motor from over Germany – a distance of 565 miles."

Turns out that Bernie was buried initially in Germany but then moved back to the States (Chehalis, WA) after the war was over. There is a list on the internet of all the people buried in the Chehalis cemetery and his name is there along with several other family members. I’m sure I could come up with some nostalgic comment at this point about how I owe my very existence to . . . . . . . . . (something or another), but somehow that’s just not me. So I’ll move quickly on to the next sight on our trip -- a place called Mont St. Michel.Mont St. Michel (pronounced moh-saa-mee-SHEHL, almost like the girl's name "Michelle") is a Benedictine Abbey built on a small rocky island in the Bay of Mont St. Michel. It’s not on the Normandy Coast per se but in the same general area, sort of around the corner to the west. The river that flows into the Bay of Mont St. Michel is actually the boundary between Normandy and Brittany. The island of Mont St. Michel is presently in Normandy – but it hasn’t always been. At one point in the past, the river went around the another side of the island and it was part of Brittany.

Tides in the Bay of Mont St. Michel are the largest and most dangerous in Europe, rising over 50 feet.
The surf comes 8 miles in and 8 miles out again with each cycle. During low tide, the Bay of Mont St. Michel is a giant mudflat. Getting to the island used to be risky business, but in 1878 a 2 mile long causeway was built connecting the island to the mainland. The causeway increased the flow of visitors, but stopped the flow of water around the island. The bay has silted up and Mont St. Michel is no longer an island. There is talk of building a bridge to Mont St. Michel and taking out the causeway, but so far nothing has happened.

The causeway remains above water even at high tide, but the parking lots on either side of it are subject to flooding. There are signs in several languages updated daily telling you when you need to move your car to avoid it being taken out by the tide. As Rick Steves quips, “careless drivers can become carless drivers” if they don’t read carefully.

Hummmm. What’s the deal with this bus?Hermit monks first came to Mont St. Michel in the 6th century in search of solitude. In 966 it became a Benedictine Monastery and remained so until 2001, except for about 70 years following the French Revolution when monasticism was abolished in France and Mont St Michel was taken over by the government and made into an Alcatraz type prison.

Today’s abbey is built on the remains of a Romanesque church, which was built on the remains of a Carolingian church. The monks built the first church on the very tiptop of the rock island in order to be as close to heaven as possible. The problem with their idea was that there really isn’t enough level ground to support a sizable abbey and church. To solve the problem, they built four large crypts around and below the first church, creating a platform to support the four wings of the church. In 1421, the crypt that supported the apse collapsed, taking that end of the church with it.

The abbey is surrounded by ramparts that are well-designed and sturdy. In fact, during the Hundred Years’ War, the English took all of Normandy, but were unable to take Mont St. Michel. Because of its feisty and successful resistance, Mont St. Michel has become a symbol of the French national identity.

It has also been an important pilgrimage center since 708 AD and is among the top four pilgrimage sites in all of Christendom. Today’s pilgrims are tourists and there are more of them than ever. We were glad to be there in the off-season even if it did mean less desirable weather. The island’s single street is lined with cafes and souvenir shops as it winds up to the abbey. Supposedly the commercialization, like the throngs of people, is not totally new, but probably a bit more extreme than it was in the Middle Ages.
























From a distance the silhouette of Mont St. Michel is pretty incredible. It’s like a giant Hershey’s Kiss sitting out in the middle of a huge flood plain. The land around the Bay of Mont St. Michel is actually polder land – farmland reclaimed from the sea by the Normans in the 19th century with the help of Dutch engineers. The tide was out while we were at Mont St. Michel and people were actually walking out to it and around it on the mudflat. Supposedly that’s really dangerous because of fog and quicksand and the danger of being surrounded by the sea. Rick Steve’s glib advice is to take a cell phone with you. I might have been tempted to venture out had it not been so rainy – also the fact that Mike kept looking over the edges of the ramparts and talking about those stupid people out there!!!When we arrived at Mont St. Michel, the weather was in one of its rare cooperative moods. It was actually fairly sunny and it was the right time of day for good pictures. As we explored the ramparts and wandered up to the abbey it got more and more overcast and rainy. About the time we were ready to descend the drizzle turned into a steady downpour and our return trip to the car was anything but leisurely. We picked our way slowly downhill, huddled under one umbrella, jostled by a sea of other umbrellas, ducking into shops and cafes occasionally for brief respites.

We did some driving around the area while the weather did its thing, viewing our Hershey’s Kiss from various directions and angles and exploring a little town on the Brittany side of the bay called Cancale. When the rain was spent, we returned to Mont St. Michel for the night view and ate supper in a restaurant we had taken note of during our hasty exodus earlier in the day. The town was significantly more peaceful after dark!

One interesting little architectural feature and then just some miscellaneous pictures before I leave Mont St. Michel: during the time when Mont St. Michel was a prison, an “elevator” was installed for moving stone and supplies up to the top. Teams of six prisoners marched two abreast – hamster style – inside a giant wheel which pulled a giant sled up a steep stone ramp.
Here’s the sled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and here is the stone ramp.

























And here are some miscellaneous pictures of Mont St. Michel.


















































On Monday morning we headed back to Heidelberg making one slight detour along the way. Earlier in the trip I had come across a spectacular postcard in a tourist shop of a place called Etratat. After some amount of investigation -- scouring my atlas and querying my GPS, neither of which were very cooperative – I determined that Etratat is on the Normandy coast, somewhat east of the familiar WWII sights, not literally on the way home but not too far out of the way either. We determined to check it out and it turned out to be a highlight of the trip, well worth the few extra kilometers it took to get there.

This is not the first time that our sightseeing itinerary has been significantly impacted by an accidental discovery in a souvenir shop. About 10 years ago Mike and I spend 2 weeks in Australia and we stumbled onto the Great Ocean Road southwest of Melbourne in just such a fashion. In that case I probably would have discovered the Great Ocean Road in a more traditional fashion had I done an adequate amount of research prior to the trip. (Believe it or not that trip was a “wake-up-in-the-tent-each-morning-and-decide-what-to-do-that-day” kind of trip. I know that doesn’t sound like anything Nancy would be capable of doing, but that IS what we did, whether you believe it or not!) In the case of Etratat, I’m not sure we would have gotten there by any method other than the one just mentioned. Rick Steves has the town of Etratat marked in very tiny print on the map of France in the front of his book, but he doesn’t say a word about it in the text.

OK, so what’s the big deal? Well, the town is just absolutely in a spectacular location. It’s on the coast, with a sandy beachfront and spectacular rock formations in either direction. Here’s the view to the west of town.And here’s the view to the East of town.And all along the tops of both sets of cliffs there are hiking trails leading to more spectacular viewsAnd the town itself has some neat architecture.

























All in all it’s just a great place to explore. If you’re afraid of heights it’s probably not the place to go. Otherwise it’s a must see. (Notice the people on the top of this cliff!)The trip home was uneventful except for some snow as we crossed through Belgium after dark.

OK, so there’s not much family news since the last travelogue. Everyone is pretty much in the same location, doing the same things as before and in the same frame of mind. If you missed the details of all that, go back to “October 2008 -- Crying Over Spilt Milk.” The only really big news is that I have another destination to add to my list of places to write about – Israel. We spent 11 days there and got back about 2 weeks ago and it was wonderful. It may take several blogs to process the whole trip. For now I’ll just say that I did not feel unsafe at any time and I will never read the Bible the same way again. We drove through the Golan Heights and the West Bank (both via public bus and rent car), climbed Mt. Sinai (that’s in Egypt!) with a Bedouin guide, also climbed Masada, went to Petra (that’s in Jordan), spend parts of 4 days in Jerusalem itself and a couple days around the Sea of Galilee. Bethlehem and Jericho are presently off-limits to DOD personnel and we were obedient.

It was all wonderful. Rose and Alan were wonderful tour guides and I’m here to tell you that that is the way to do it – no commercial bus tours for me, thank-you very much. Our only mishap was that Alan and I both had our laptop computers stolen from the trunk of our rent car while we were parked at a spa on the Dead Sea! I must confess that it took me a day or two to figure out how to smile again after that! Darn. Sometimes you just can’t win. The laptops were in the trunk and the doors were locked. Rose’s computer was slid under the driver’s seat and thankfully somehow they missed it – go figure. Fortunately, this computer disaster, unlike the last 3, is being funded by my renters insurance, so I’m only out the deductible and I have ANOTHER new computer. It's almost identical to the last one, so less adjustment pain than the last time around.

On that more optimistic note, I will end my report on Israel with the promise that I will get back to this trip in more detail and with pictures in due time – after Egypt and the Pyrenees and Croatia and the other trips listed in that previous travelogue, “Crying Over Split Milk.”

Nancy