Today was easily the most emotional day for everybody. We visited Omaha Beach and the American cemetery there, followed by a short visit to Pointe-du-Hoc, a short D-Day ceremony in the village of Graignês, and finally dinner in Carentan.
We first went to Omaha Beach, and that affected everybody. It’s hard to put into words how I felt, and I think the rest of the group would agree. Mal Walker was a lieutenant in the 29th Division when he hit the beach at 8:30 am, and he told the group his story of what he remembered of D-Day. He talked about the carnage and the chaos of thousands of young men storming the beaches against a determined enemy. The water and the sand were stained red with blood and bodies were everywhere. He mentioned that the company that hit the beach in the previous wave lost 96% of its men in the first 15 minutes.
Harry Dearwater was also in the 29th Infantry Division, and he became choked up when he started talking about the thousands of lives lost and the sight of so many dead Americans.
Donald Allen was in the 2nd Armored Division, and he could hardly bear the thought of remembering how many men died on the beaches here. He broke down on the beach. It took everything in me to not start crying just seeing these men getting so emotional over the battlefield and what happened. I’ve read so much about D-Day, and it was incredible to visit the beaches but it was even more to visit it with the men who fought there. Just listening to their stories made me appreciate it that much more. From the beaches we visited the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach, where over 9,000 Americans are buried. Again, I was moved emotionally to see in physical terms the amount of sacrifice it took to free Europe from Nazi oppression. However, again, I appreciated it so much more to walk through the headstones with Richard Lacey, a 30th Infantry Division veteran who would occasionally point somebody he knew from the war. It added more to my visit than I could ever imagine. Again, it took everything in me to maintain my calm without becoming too emotional.
We made a series of short stops after that. We visited the Grandcamp-Maisy battery, a series of trenches and bunkers a man discovered under a field and turned into a walking tour and will soon be a museum. It was very cool to walk through the actual trench lines, gun pits, and bunkers that the German defenders fought in throughout the Normandy battle. We made a quick detour to Pointe Du Hoc where the 2nd Ranger Battalion valiantly climbed steep cliffs to destroy guns that weren’t actually there. The craters from naval guns and bombs, bunkers, and gun pits still litter the landscape. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed traversing the land where Americans and Germans clashed to free Europe. After Pointe-du-Hoc, we went to the small village of Graignês for a commemoration ceremony for members of the 82nd Airborne troopers who fought a defensive battle against a German force ten times their own and later pulled out on June 11. It was a lovely ceremony with soldiers from the United States, the Netherlands, France, and Germany there to commemorate the heroic stand.
We left Graignês by foot, following the footsteps the 82nd took when they left the city. One of our veterans, Bill Colwell, a paratrooper on D-Day, led the 5 mile walk. At one point, we stopped to listen to him talk about what it was like when he was a scout for the paratroopers and he killed his first German. We were all moved emotionally when he told us what it was like to see the German soldier’s look of surprise when he was shot and how he saw that face for years to come. It was a somber atmosphere, but important for all of us to trace the footsteps of what happened here 67 years ago and what the men who fought went through.
Finally, we stopped in the historic town of Carentan for dinner. We didn’t see as much in Carentans as I would’ve liked to since we were pressed for time, so I hope we visit later to see the town where the 101st Airborne fought a key battle in the first days of the Normandy campaign.
Like I said before, I cannot put into words the powerful emotions we all felt on the beaches and on the walk. It was powerful enough to see the battlefields with our eyes, but it was incredible to hear individual tales and experiences of war.
-Written by USAF Cadet Sam Roller
