June 4-5th 2007

The French country side is beautiful. Just like in the movies the buildings here in Normandy are old, some dating back several hounded years, and the grass is ever so green. The Normandy region is covered with fields of wheat and corn hill after rolling hill.

As we exited the high way and entered the country roads, the roads immediately shrunk down to a narrow road and cars zoom by each other with only several inches to spare.

As we entered the town, or rather Village, of Illiers- L’Eveque, I notice the roads have no shoulder, but rather the road is defined by windows, doors and walls of peoples homes. Decades of erosion and cars whizzing by have given these structures the “Normandy country side” look.

I could not help but wonder how may have these villages looked 63 years ago. Was it devastated by five years or war, or was the village of Illeris- L’eveque left untouch by the war?

Either way, I could imagine French women and children welcoming the liberators with kisses and hugs, French flags flapping over the narrow streets of villages and the overpowering ringing from the church bells.

However, at the same time I could just hear the sounds of war echoing off in the distances: The rat tat tat tat of a machine gun, the clanking of a tank treads or the desperate cries from the wounded and scared. As I sat in back seat, I wondered if these beautiful place instigate awful memories for Ysidor.

We made a left on Rue de Liberation. I quickly scouted the area for any attractive French women and tried to decipher French signs. It has been three years since I lost spoke French.

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Our first visit was to a German cemetery in St. Andre some 15km away. It was here that Rene, our host, explained to me that it was here that the Americans set up thier first provisional cemetery. The black and white photo showed row upon row of wooden white crosses and some where in that row of crosses was Daniel H. Tremper. Now adjacent from where the American cemetery stood is a German Cemetery. Some 20,000 plus German Soldiers lay buried here. I notice that each grave has two soldiers, meaning there are bodies per grave.

Our next visit was to a German airfield. We drove on the taxi was which planes use to use to get to the garage, barracks or runway. During the war, the taxi way was heavily bombed and the craters are still visible. It at this abandoned airfield that many youth learn how to drive.

I may learn how to drive a stick car here.

Robert




June 5th, 2007

Rene explained to me on the two hour drive to the Normandy coast where certain battle where fought and where Ysidor’s regiment was.

By 11am we arrived in St Laurent sur Mer, better know as Omaha beach. As we drove in on the main road to the left was the Omaha Beach Museum guarded by a rusty Sherman tank, a German anti-aircraft gun and beach obstacles.

We drove by…

And then there it was! The beach! Omaha! Bloody Omaha!! At first I could not believe it, but there it was. It will take me a day for it to finally sink in.

We stood in a very small motel called the D Day house. At ground lever there is a little restaurant that served a modest meal. Our rooms where upstairs. In France, people can still smoke in doors, so years of smoke had crept and embedded itself in our rooms. We got use to it.

I got unpacked and Ysi and I immediately changed into our uniforms. Ysi is a very proud person. Proud of every medel, proud of every citation, and proud of his Sgt, who lays just over the ridge.

Rene had arrange with the Mayor of Colleville for Ysi to speak to a group of school children at the 2nd Divisions Memoral which stits on a hill over looking the Easy Red sector. The moment is an old German Battery bunker.

This was an amazing site. There above the clifs of Omaha one can see the

whole beach. It was nearly impossible for me to picture this quite community a few hundred, to have been the one of many portholes into hell.

Now it is a place of remembrance... A place where the old come to remember and the young try to comprehend. A place where old soles, like myself, try to indulge sprit and mind with history … a place where sprits wonder.

The winds of history bite at your nose and the moister in the air collected on finger tips. Few birds lingered around with their ever so threatening bombs of their own… it was if they knew they where in the presence of greatness.

I must admit I didn’t know the significant of this bunker and hill until a Frenchman ask me if I spoke French. Oui, un pleu.

He pointed to where troops landed and the story of this bunker. How this gun took out a lot of machines and men on June 6th, and how the Americans over came this obstacle. He walked me over the plaque that explained the history. OHHHHH WOW!!!! I said. Every WWII buff knows of this picture and have seen it a thousand times. Even the average person has seen it at least a hundred times.

We talked to a few American who were backpacking across Europe. They were from Connecticut and where on their way to Paris. Told them they should stop at the American Cemetery.

After taking several dozen of photo of Ysi and the children I took a picture of myself ontop of the hill over looking Easy Red.