The American Sector: Omaha Beach & Point Du Hoc / American and German Cemeteries

Hey guys! Hope all is going well back home. Everything here is good, except I fear that if the US Women's soccer team keeps up their beating on the French, we might be tarred and feathered over here for being Americans! Haha anyways I'll stop my attempts at humor and get right to today's trip. Bare with me because there is a lot.

What a day it was. After a short bus ride, our group arrived to probably the most well known beaches of the D-Day landings: Omaha beach.  Walking along this sand/cobblestone beach this morning was an experience I will never forget. As an American, every grain of sand is considered hallowed ground.

The surf at Omaha beach was in the exact same conditions as it would have been during the landing hours

Of the 5 separate beaches that the Allies were going to be landing on the morning of June 6th, the one beach they weren't sure could be taken was Omaha. As a veteran of the trench warfare in WWI, Rommel had fortified his German positions with any and all nightmares of defensive fortifications and obstacles he could. The beach was considered suicide. Despite this, the Allies could not afford to leave it opened because it would leave too much distance between the British landings at Gold Beach and the other American landings at Utah Beach.

Because it was such a gamble, the American commanders gambled even further by assigning the beach the the green (no combat experience) 29th Infantry Division alongside the combat experienced veterans of the 1st Infantry Division (also known as the Big Red One). The idea was that the veterans, having combat experience, would get on the beach and use their weapons, but hold fast and not take the risky moves that a fresh young infantryman would in those conditions (such as the new 29th). This combination, the commanders hoped, would give the troopers landing at Omaha a chance.

Regardless of their experience, the soldiers on the beach were descending into hell. As in all amphibious assaults, the assaulting soldiers would hit the beach with 0% combat potential (no fortifications or any means of a foothold. On the other hand, German defenders were at 100% combat potential with concealed beach positions and machine gun nests (manned with MG42s: nicknamed 'Hitler's buzz saw' because of its deadly high rate of fire). From the bluffs 300-400 yards (the consensus reached by a group member and myself) behind the beach and with the exception of a few strands of barbed wire and anti-vechile defenses, the Germans had nothing but open ground to fire thousands of rounds on the Americans below.

View from the bluffs. There was no vegetation whatsoever during the invasion so the Germans had clear targets. One machine-gunner was recored to have fired 10,000 rounds 

 Other obstacles in the water meant the landing craft could only come within 200 yards of the shore, leaving the soldiers to have to cross the freezing, rough waves in full gear (many of them were so heavy that they drowned). Some men were mowed down by German machine gunners before they could even leave their boats. On the beach, most of them threw themselves flat on the sand to avoid being hit by the machine gun fire coming from the bluffs.

For many, the beach was as far as they got before they were killed. Some of them spent the entire day laying in the sand praying they wouldn't get killed. I was imagining today what some of them might have been thinking as they buried their face in the sand. Im sure for some of them it was home, family and friends and the thought they would never see them again. I imagine some of them were probably so scared that they couldn't think of anything. Maybe even some of them were angry that they were pinned down and stuck in a completely unfair fight.

Whatever it was, the young men (a huge majority was between the ages of 18-24) found something within themselves to move forward; to arise from amidst the carnage and push on to the bluffs, were they had a much better chance at fighting back. From there, they ascended the bluffs and pushed the Germans back, taking the beach.

I've seen 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Band of Brothers' plenty of times to get an idea of what D-Day was like. But until today, I had never felt just how cold the North Atlantic can be in the summer. I never saw how the tide pounds away at Norman coastline. I never perceived just how far and how much open ground the American soldiers had to cover under the heavy fire.

Until today, I had no real idea just of how terrifying this beach must have been to the men who landed here. It was truly a reverent experience.

The American Cemetery
From the beach we walked up the bluffs to where the American cemetery is. At the entrance is a wall which encloses the Garden of the Missing. There are 1,557 soldiers whose remains were never recovered. Their names are engraved upon the wall as a reminder that while their body lay buried somewhere unknown, their names are eternally enshrined with their brethren that lay buried.

9,387 marble headstones grace this 172 acre plot. Among these lay 41 sets of brothers, 3 Medal of Honor winners, and 1 (and only) set of father and son.

At the front of the cemetery we stood in in two lines while the National Anthem was played. We then turned around to stand during the playing of Taps, followed by a minute of silence. The coolest part to me was that there were other tourists there (and many of them not American) that showed tremendous respect during this ceremony. It was such an amazing experience and makes me so proud to be an American.

Our professor tasked each one of us with a special assignment. We were each given a flower, accompanied with a name of a Texas soldier who fell during the invasion.

I was given the privilege to my respects to Private First Class Willie M. Smith of the 359th Infantry Regiment (90th Infantry Division). Pvt. Smith was killed June 18th.

Following this, our group went to see the 2 most well known sets of brothers buried in the cemetery. The first one was were the Roosevelts (Theodore Jr. and Quentin), sons of President Teddy Roosevelt.

Theodore Jr.'s grave stone is noticeably marked with the Medal of Honor distinction. As with the two others, the writing on his headstone is in gold

Theodore Jr. was a Brigadier General who landed at Utah Beach. He was a passionate soldier who believed that as an officer he should be on the beach with his men to encourage them. His commander almost refused him, until Theodore Jr. threatened to call his cousin in Washington (FDR). Needless to say he was allowed to go and was in the first boat ashore. He and his men landed off course at Utah beach. When asked what to do, he is famously quoted as saying "We'll start the war from right here." General Roosevelt died of a heart attack on June 12th and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor

Quentin is a different story. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the 95th Aero Squadron. He was shot down and killed on July 18th BUT... in 1918. Quentin served in WWI and is the only veteran of that war to be buried in this cemetery. When the Germans found him and discovered him to be a Roosevelt, they buried  him with top military honors. After the death of Theodore Jr., the family requested Quentin be laid next to his brother.

The second set of brothers are more well known: Preston and Robert Niland.

Sound familiar? If not, it is probably because you've heard them referred to as their fictional name 'Ryan'. These are two of 4 brothers that Stephen Spielberg based 'Saving Private Ryan' off of.

Preston was a 2nd Lieutenant  in the 4th Infantry division and was killed on June 6th. The following day Robert, a Sergeant in the 82nd Airborne was killed. A third brother was shot down in the Pacific and captured by the Japanese (later released). The fourth brother, James, made it through D-Day and was back in England when he received word of his brothers. Under the Sole-Survivor Policy, James was sent back home to New York.
SPOILER ALERT: The character portrayed by Tom Hanks (Captain Miller) is based off a Major Thomas D. Howie. He was so well respected that when he was killed, his body way covered with a flag and set in front of the village church for soldiers walking by to pay their final respects.

The next headstone had a heartbreaking story to it.

Billie D. Harris was a 1st Lieutenant from Oklahoma who was killed on July 17th. He was 22, my age. His wife back home however, received no word of her husband's death. She never remarried and always held on to a little bit of hope that her beloved Billie was still alive and fighting on. Five years ago she traveled to the cemetery, where she found his headstone that you see above. He had been here, waiting for her.

All the headstones have names written on the opposite side of the main entrance. This is because they are all buried facing West - towards Home. A quote in the visitor's center drove everything home:
"If ever proof were needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest could be found in theses cemeteries. Here was our only conquest: all we asked...was enough soil in which to bury our gallant dead." -General Mark W. Clark

I could go on and on about the American cemetery but I am trying my best to keep this as short as possible. But the more I'm here, the more and more excited I get about this and just want to go on forever sharing about it!

We stopped for lunch in the village of Vierville (also known as the Vierville Gap), where the Americans broke through and first got vehicles up the narrow roads to the top of the bluffs. Lunch was great! Several of us went to a small tavern and had theses amazing sausage and cheese calzones. Lunch of champions!

Point Du Hoc
One cannot call themselves a true Aggie if they cross an entire ocean to come to France and not take time to visit Point Du Hoc. This is where the 2nd Ranger Battalion under James Earl Rudder (class of 1932- WHOOP!) scaled the cliffs to assault the heavy gun emplacements covering both the Utah and Omaha beaches. If these guns weren't neutralized, they could easily pick off ships in the Channel and wreak havoc on the already defenseless troops below.

The outer most point (notice the lookout bunker bottom center) of the German fortifications. The cliff in the background gives an idea of what some the ranges had to climb.

A combined Naval and Air bombardment hit the German defenses but failed to fully knock them out before the Rangers could scale the cliffs and take advantage of their confusion. It was intense fighting at Point Du Hoc (Rudder himself was wounded several times). But the Rangers dug in, using the bomb craters as defensive positions to hold off the German counterattack and slowly advance to destroy the German's 155mm guns. After three days of fighting, Rudder's Rangers were relieved by reinforcements from the beach.

What I found most interesting here is that the bomb craters from 1944 are still here. For the most part (with the exception of the bunkers and vegetation growth) this is a battlefield that has not changed. Unbelievable.

Needless to say, its hard to move around Point Du Hoc without noticing the craters.

Me at the bottom of a bomb crater. Im about 5'10 so use that to help gauge the scale of how massive these are.

German Cemetery
Last but not least, our day was concluded by visiting the German cemetery.

Even the Germans get cemeteries in France, despite the bitter hatred that the French held towards them. But even enemies can and must show respect for one another. Even members of the Waffen-SS, probably the most fanatical and ruthless of Hitler's Nazi followers, are given a place in the soil of France.

Unlike the Allied cemeteries, the German one is much smaller meaning the corpses had to be buried two caskets to a grave. What information is known about them is engraved on a clay German cross.

While the French may show respect to their enemies, that does not mean that they treat them to the same degree as the Allies as the German cemetery is very simple and has few memorials to the men buried there.


Well thanks for hanging in there with me!  I know it was a lot to take in but it was just another full day of  seeing history. Thanks to all those keeping up with me and I can't wait to get back to the U.S. and about it in person. There are plenty of pictures on Facebook from today so help yourself.

Our free weekend is tomorrow and so I'll be off to Ireland for 4 days so Ill be sure to mention that on here when I get back.

Thats all for now!