Chuck Visits the Dead at Normandy

It may sound macabre to want to visit a cemetery, but when I told Chuck the story of how the cemetery came to be, he became duly intrigued and insisted on stopping to visit the dead.  We usually don’t think about what happens to the soldiers who are killed in battle on foreign soil. During World War II, there were more than 2,000 American soliders who lost their lives during D Day.  The protocol is that families have the choice--they can bury their loved ones where they died or have them sent home.  

The American Cemetery at Normandy is 172.5 acres of land, located on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, technically on French soil, but it is considered American land and it’s run by the United States government.  Approximately 9,400 Americans are buried there, and every year millions of visitors from all over the world come to visit to pay their respects.

The first thing you notice are the crosses, each one marking a gravesite.  They are lined symmetrically and they seem to go on forever. Rows and rows of crosses stretch for acres and acres.  It is the sheer  organization of death that hits you--the space and the numbers.  The white crosses against the green of the grass.  Perfectly tended.  Beautiful against the blue sky.  A breeze blows from the ocean. 

Then you notice the other aspects of the cemetery.  A chapel sits squarely in the middle of the grounds.  There is a 22 foot bronze statue in the center of this memorial in the open arc facing the graves, which is called the “Spirit of American Youth Rising From The Waves” appropriate because so many of the dead in this cemetery lost their lives struggling to gain possession of the beaches in Normandy. The names of the 1, 557 Americans who were missing who could not be located or identified from the Normandy campaign are carved on the garden walls behind this memorial. And north of the memorial is an overlook where one can visualize the battle that took place during D Day.

Brigadire General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. is buried in this cemetery.  He is one of three Medal of Honor recipients, who was awarded his medal posthumously for his valor during the Battle at Utah Beach.  He did not die on the beach that day. The oldest soldier who landed on the beach, beset with a heart condition and with arthritis, he acted courageously and survived only to die one month later of a heart attack. His brother is buried next to him.  In all, there are 38 sets of brothers buried in the cemetery.

The American Cemetery at Normandy is one of the world’s best known military cemeteries. As Chuck and I leave, we discover that near the Visitor’s Center, newsmen visiting in 1969 buried a time capsule--to be opened on June 6, 2044. 

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Chuck Visits Code Name Omaha Beach

History is sometimes hard to imagine.  The brutality of it.

Which is why I made the harsh decision to sit my rascal cat, Chuck, down to watch the work of a master craftsman--Steven Spielberg, whose movie, Saving Private Ryan, shows in horrific detail (and, here, I'm talking about the opening 27 minutes) one of the most realistic battle sequences ever filmed--the Allied invasion of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

Omaha Beach was the ”code name” for the largest of the five beaches in the German occupied area of Normandy, France
during World War II.  It was the American’s responsibility to take control of the beach.  There were no less than twelve German strongpoints that directed fire on the troops that landed that day as part of the Allied invasion. The casualties were enormous.  In fact, Omaha has been called the “most intensely fought after beach” ever.

The soldiers who lived through the battle have an understanding of what it was like to be on the beach that day.  For the rest of us, we can look at the photos or read the accounts or watch the film.

No one can forget the close-up of the Tom Hanks’ character in the opening minutes, giving last minute orders to his men, as the boat brings them closer and closer to the shore and to the enemy fire and his words, “I’ll see you on the beach,” which rings out like a death sentence. 

Today, the area known as Omaha Beach is more built up, of course.  The towns and villages that surround it have expanded and changed with the passage of time, but the actual geography of the beach remains eerily as it was.  

As Chuck and I walk around this now famous tourist spot, we see the landscape, the inroads that were used by the men when they came in from the beach.  

We see the pill boxes, the concrete dug-in guard posts, equipped with loop holes with which to fire weapons, which still exist.  We see the bunkers. 

The flags of all the liberating countries now fly on the beach.

A sculpture, built in 2004, is dedicated to peace and to the soldiers who fought for the Allies.  We know that 34,000 Allied forces landed on the beach. The casualties numbered 2,400.  

Today, the beach is once again at peace.    

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