Operation Overlord

While melting lead fired to the left and right of them from the short-distance artillery, it was the shots aimed right in front that worried them. Because when that ironclad door dropped and the spikes anchored it to the shore there would be nothing in between them and the hill they had to take. Its nearly impossible to describe what D-Day was like for those who weren't there. But the graves that remain tell a story to each and every visitor. For the French who survived the war, they stand to solidify their distrust in the Germans. And for Americans, they could mean anything from a resting place of a relative to a argument against war. For me it was history.
I arrived in Bayeux, by train from Caen, early in the morning. The sun was just rising over the rolling pastures of luscious grass and the street sweeper had just retired from its pre-traffic shift. The dark gray rectangular van pulled up to collect me. It was the kind of van thats sole buying force was tour agencies, with its multiple rows maximizing on capacity room. I climbed in, greeted the three southerners, and hopped in the back seat. Matthew, my french tour guide, had one more pickup to make. I sat back against the tight plastic, meant to protect the seats from the sweat that would surely accumulate because the lack of air conditioning, and listened the the three jabber on about the book D-Day by Steven Ambrose. I hadn't conversed with Americans in quite some time but right then and there I didn't want to talk. I wanted it to be silent. I wanted to take in the scenery of Normandy with the fields that our men walked through, landed on, and parachuted in. We turned off to the left into a hotel parking lot and picked up the last clients. Two elderly French and their grandson. The Grandfather, who was terrible ill, wanted to see the beaches before he passed away. During the war he was a rebel fighter and to his regret was imprisoned in a POW camp during the invasion. They squeezed in next to me and nodded the familiar nod received when either party doesn't speak the others language. And now with a bilingual group we moved onto the highway and cruised to our first stop.
The German cemetery was once shared with the Americans as a place to bury the dead until they could be later identified. But now the black Germanic crosses and names clearly illustrate that that has since changed. The stone plates reach the far field, past the memorial mount with its statues, and past the bordering trees. The amount of dead is unimaginable. With each burial including two soldiers, one atop the other, the number is astronomical. The Americans continued on about their book, largely disregarding the tour guides insight, and used it as away to trump his knowledge disrespectfully. I walked on, passing row after row, name after name, unidentifiable soldier after unknown body for what seemed to be an eternity. The french couple both had their thoughts on the Germans. The man had never forgiven them and the woman, after her family had two homes destroyed in both world wars, would forever hold a grudge.
We moved on into the cities of Sainte-Mère-Église and Vierville where the 101st and 82nd Airborn Divisions were dropped. The stories ranged from soldiers chutes getting caught on steeples and having to play dead, to jumpers landing on gating guns, taking a bullet, and then killing the gunner before they died. The Airborn division was caught landing only by chance. What was to be blackout time according to the German curfew was interrupted because of a fire in the town. And with the large number of civilians in one area fighting the fire came Germans to insure it wasn't a ploy for rebellion. The silhouettes of the parachutes were easily seen and 50% of the 14,000 troops were killed. Some landing in the murky flooded fields drowned, caught in their gear, but did so quietly. They knew screaming for help or slashing about could ruin the entire surprise attack.
After a stop at the museum we moved onto Utah beach. The congested road is covered in memorials to different soldiers who died while continuing the charge in order to cut off the peninsula from German reinforcements. The beach itself was small and with only 75 Nazis's it was our easiest strip to take. But I could still picture the thousands of Americans coming in on those wave soaked, wooden, mass produced boats fearing the worst.
Omaha beach was different. It was undisputedly the most difficult to take. With the first exit secured by Americans at 10:00 am and the last, of the five, at sunset. The all day battle for Omaha took over 2,000 U.S soldiers and wounded roughly 6000, most permanently. The hole a Gattling Gun leaves can be 2 inches in diameter, sometimes taking a limb or a jaw with it. But whether you were shot or not the memory would surely be branded in your mind for life. In France over 100,000 troops were killed in six months, a forth of what the US lost in the entire war, and for a country with a far smaller population they need D-Day. On June 6th, 1944 we began the true continental push against the Nazi regime, eventually liberating France, and moving into the Fuhr's stronghold.
Now the beaches are covered in swimsuits, with children running, and frisbees being thrown, but we must remember that nearly 65 years ago our men were charging and grenades were being hurled on the very same soil. Movies have and will be made but until you go to the beaches yourself you will never fully appreciate what our men did. The wall of unfound soldiers curves around the monument of Freedom. Some bear the tag that dictates that they were discovered, the last one was found in 2009 in a field when a farmer was plowing. But surely others will be unearthed and the memory of what we did will continue to reiterate itself in those who remember, those who forgot, or those who weren't alive and didn't know.



-Chad A. Dokken