Pat's Irish Tour - July 2014

Day 2 - Tuesday 8th July (continued.../)

The first stop of the afternoon had been planned to be the German Cemetery at La Cambe but due to accumulated delays on the previous first day, I decided to drop this second German cemetery. It's loss would cause the least disruption to the 'flow' of the three day tour because we had already seen the cemetery at Orglandes.

Our revised first stop in the afternoon was therefore Pointe du Hoc. The group shot below, taken by Dale, was at the very point of the site near the newly opened observation bunker:

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One thing I have learned about visiting Pointe du Hoc - bring a peaked hat! I don't know what it is about the site but you really do feel the sun if the sky is clear; I being from Ireland and not being used to a lot of sun might have something to do with it of course

Rather that show you a lot of broken masonry, the reader may be interested in these three extracts from reconnaissance cover flown on the 10th April, 25th April and 4th June:

Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.ncap.org.uk

Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.ncap.org.uk

Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.ncap.org.uk ​

I presume the first real attempt at bombing the site must have taken place somewhere between the 10th and 25th April as I can see no craters on the first extract. The site was bombed once again in the pre-dawn on D-Day morning by RAF Lancasters.

It's an interesting exercise to see if you can find the features as shown on the map below in the reconnaissance extracts above:

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Not as easy as it first seems, especially on the 4th June cover.

The shot below I took from the point in front of the observation bunker looking down on the shingle stone beach where the 2nd Ranger assault teams landed:

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It's one heck of a long way down - the shot was taken with a 200mm tele lens :exclamation:

More follows...

Regards,

Pat

 

Dale,

The best account and follow-up research on Rommel's attack I have come across is in issue #8, 'After The Battle' Magazine. Sean put me onto it when we first opened the thread titled 'Case #1 - Who Strafed Rommel's Car?'

Some of the assumptions reached in the article hang a bit precariously in my view - the main one being that No. 602 Squadron RAF aircraft carried out the attack. One of the aerial photographs of the road flown by the researchers has this caption:

I would have preferred to read in the single word "probably by 602 Squadron"

Regards,

Pat

 

Tuesday afternoon, 8th July...

Departing Point du Hoc, our next stop was Omaha Beach which we found relatively devoid of holiday makers; something I personally prefer when visiting the beaches. The shot below was taken looking out to sea and shows the problem encountered by troops landing whereby they initially jumped into shallow water at the end of the landing craft door but then encountered deeper water as they waded towards shore:

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Dale brought us to a spot on the beach just east of the Vierville D1 Draw for his presentation. The green circle on the map below indicates our approximate position on the sand in the Dog Green Sector:

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When checking GE 'street view' to make sure I had the right location for this post, I found what appears to be another tour group on the same spot - I suspect the red minibus is the transport vehicle for this group:

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Pivoting the GE 'street view' on the same spot by 180° gives you this view of the Vierville D1 Draw with the bunker just left of centre forming the seaward corner of Widerstandsnest 72:

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There is an 88mm AT gun still in place in the bunker which can be seen through the grilled embrasure. I took a shot of the muzzle brake below:

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I wasn't sure if focus had fallen on the muzzle and did not think it a great shot at the time but looking at it now, the gun seems to have a sinister feel to it - almost as if it's waiting in its dark lair for a new target; creepy :s

To really appreciate the huge defensive advantage the Germans enjoyed at Omaha, you need to see the beach through the eyes of the troops up on the bluffs. One of the best places along the beach to do this is at our next stop, WN 60 over on the extreme eastern end. WN 60 is circled blue on the above map.

Following Dale's description of the strong point which defended the small F1 Exit, we had a few minutes to wander around the site and take some photos. The two below are taken with the 70-200mm zoom at two different focal lengths:

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It is estimated that there were at least 70 MG42 positions along the bluffs with this kind of view - it makes you wonder how the landings succeeded here at all - at any price!

Below is a shot of William in one of the WN 60 mortar tobruks:

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Leaving WN 60, we loaded up once more for the final stop of Tuesday, the American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer. The shot below is the best one I got at the cemetery. The black and white conversion adds impact I think:

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Looking at his unit, the 175th Infantry Regiment and the date on which he was killed, the 13th of July 1944, it would appear that Corporal Moffatt was killed in the Battle for St Lo. I am adding this and other marker images taken during the tour to The Fallen section of the Forum, one thread per name, so that we can do a bit of background work on each when time allows.

End of Day 2.

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi John,

Dale told us the weapons pit was a mortar tobruk. I am not an expert on bunker designs but I assume the mortar was mounted on some form of bracket like this one and the bracket in turn was mounted on the concrete column. The other option might have been a tank turret or 'panzerstellung tobruk'. The white arrow on the Bing Maps extract below indicates the opening where William is in the ground photo and the red arrow shows the entrance trench:

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Hi Allan,

I have read somewhere that many GIs survived Omaha only by playing dead and letting the tide bring them in to the shingle bank over a period of hours. You would have to wonder too if the DD tanks would really have made much difference.

By the way Allan, thanks for the heads up on the BBC2 documentary tonight on the Lancaster. The rowing boat in the lake at Peenemünde really got to me. Sorry guys; I should have passed on Allan's email; it's title is 'The Lancaster - Britain's Flying Past'. Well worth a look. Here is the BBC iPlayer link.

Regards,

Pat

Edit: John, here is somebody else's photo of the same tobruk.

 

Day 3 of 3 - Wednesday, 9th July.

We had a tight schedule on our final day of touring as our ferry was departing Cherbourg at 18:00 on the return leg of our journey back to Ireland. First stop was the Longues sur Mer Battery which is the only remaining battery with its original guns still in place. The main armament of the position, sited between Omaha Beach and Gold Beach, was 4x6in ex naval guns which the Germans had emplaced within M272 casemates. (looked that up only now )

The guns, with their shields, were taken from a destroyer and so have a distinctive nautical appearance when viewed from the front. The closeup below shows a muzzle from one of the guns with the rifling still clearly visible inside the barrel:

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While the barrels of the four guns are in relatively good condition, the sea air has taken its toll on the shields and breach areas over the last seventy years. Dale told us that even in the time he has been guiding in Normandy, he has noticed an appreciable deterioration in the metal work. He made the comment that even if some one was to throw some waste oil over them once a year, it would help to stem the rate of decay. This British Pathe footage shows the guns in much better nick fifty years ago in 1964. Hopefully something will be done to halt the salt corrosion.

The shot below shows my group in front of one casemate:

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It's interesting to compare this shot with another BP footage still which shows four British soldiers at another of the casemates - note the huge proportion of the concrete work which was below ground level and only exposed by the bomb crater:

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The site was put out of action on D-Day by very accurate fire from the light cruiser HMS Ajax of River Plate fame. There are still impact scars from Ajax's fire on the shields and the concrete walls of the casemates.

More follows...

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi Don,

I doubt the Germans took shortcuts, certainly early on in the War. Labour costs were minimal if not non-existent for a start!

Dale showed us the side of a casemate on Pointe du Hoc which had been hit during an air raid so soon after construction that part of the still setting concrete had poured out of a fracture and then set like molten lava - the casemate remained intact(ish) however!

He also showed us cement set in the shape of the hundredweigh bags it had been delivered on site in and a nearby pile of builders' gravel; can't say if it was off the beach or out of a gravel pit but my guess would be the latter.

Regards,

Pat

 

Day 3 (continued.../)

A quick, un-scheduled stop in Arromanches to view the Mulberry Harbour remains was a very welcome addition to the the sites on our third and last day in Normandy. Dale done a short presentation on this wonder of British engineering and me thinks I detected more than a trace of a smile when he came to the part about how the American Mulberry 'A' failed to stand up to the storm of 19th-21st June while the British Mulberry 'B' remained within inches of where it had been set down.

Being from a neutral country, I couldn't possibly comment

Below is a shot showing one of the Phoenix sections just off shore with a second section beyond, further out to sea:

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Loading up once again, we headed down to the Canadian Cemetery at Beny sur Mer. This was my third visit to the cemetery and I have to say it is one of the 'brightest' in Normandy. What do I mean? ...well there is something about it which lifts the spirit - for me at least. I think the maple trees and their bright green colours play a large part in this - or maybe it's just my imagination

Below are some of my better photos taken during our forty five minute stay:

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The out-of-place marker in the B&W conversion above is that of Guenard August, a local French civilian who was killed while acting as a guide for the Canadians.

Sorry about the image overload in this post folks, but like I say, there is something about the place...

Regards,

Pat

 

Quick backtrack to Tuesday - Omaha Beach.

Last night I was going through some old scans of colour transparency film I shot at Widerstandsnest 60 during my first visit to Normandy in 2006. The B&W conversion below shows one of these:

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Notice the huge distance the tide has traveled in as seen here and compared to the low tide shots I took on Tuesday :exclamation:

Its hard to imagine how anyone could have made it that distance without getting hit at lease once.

Regards,

Pat

 

Wednesday afternoon...

Following our visit to Beny sur Mer Canadian Cemetery, we had another of Dale's un-scheduled stops at the small village of Authie where on the 7th June, elements of the 12th SS Panzer 'Hitlerjugend' Division overran a Company of the Canadian North Nova Scotia Highlanders and took many of them prisoner.

The young fanatics of this German unit then killed many of their captives in this village, having first lined them, wounded included, along the four sides of the square. During the massacre, a local Frenchman Jules Carville, left his wife and the relative safety of his house and attempted to plead for a cessation of the killing. He was shot dead out of hand and his wife, rushing out to her dying husband, was severely wounded but survived.

The village square is lettered A- D on the GE screenshot below:

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Below is a shot I took of a plague mounted on the memorial on the eastern corner of the square:

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The wording of the plaque belies the severity of the savage brutality experienced by this one little village. Having imparted the story of the killing in the square, Dale then took us over to the churchyard where I grabbed this shot of the Carville marker in the cemetery:

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Impact scars are visible all over the church and surrounding markers in the cemetery and the shot below also shows clearly where post war reconstruction took place:

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Despite our early evening departure time, I was glad Dale was able to squeeze in this extra stop before the next scheduled stop at the nearby Abbaye d'Ardenne - a true mark of a very accomplished guide - thanks Dale

More follows...

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi Folks,

To finish our last day of the tour, we moved onto the Abbey d'Ardenne, where between the 7th and 17th June 1944, in the region of 20 Canadian PoWs were unlawfully executed at or near the Abbey.

There are numerous photos of the memorial in the garden and I have taken quite a few myself during two previous visits to the location. However, the photograph below is the only one I took this time round:

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It shows the door where most of the PoWs were kept before being brought out one by one to the garden at the rear to be executed. The photo was taken from the NE side of the pond in the courtyard as indicated by the red arrow below. The yellow circle indicates the garden to the rear of the courtyard where nearly all the executions took place:

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A very moving stop and several of the guys told me afterwards that they were glad I had put the Abbey on the tour itinerary as it had moved them deeply, even more so that that cemetery visits. I had asked William when we got off the bus if he was sure he wanted to go in and offered to stay outside with him until the others returned. I was surprised at how emphatic he was that he wanted to see the site.

Following mount up, it took a while for conversation to begin again; everyone, including myself, was deep in their own thoughts as we pushed on to Pegasus Bridge.

Dale related the story of the famous glider assault on Pegasus Bridge as the place teemed with visitors on a gloriously sunny July afternoon. I could see spirits had lifted significantly as the group listed intently to the heroic and daring raid by men of the 2nd Battalion, 'Ox & Bucks' (Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) under Major John Howard, who stormed and captured the vital bridges over the Caen Canal and River Orne. The taking of the two bridges was one of the linchpins for the success of the Invasion. Below is a shot I took of the bronze bust of Major Howard at the point where the lead Horsa glider landed just 50 meters from the Canal Bridge (now known as Pegasus Bridge):

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Our last stop of the day and final one of the tour was the British and Commonwealth Cemetery at Ranville. I took the photo below at probably one of the most poignant markers of all the cemeteries we had visited on this trip, that of Private Emile S Corteil, A Company, 9th (Essex) Parachute Battalion:

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Private Corteil was killed on D-Day along with his 'para dog' Glen, who had made the jump with him. In a unique Normandy battlefield grave, both dog and man rest together.

The photo below shows William taking some timeout at Emile and Glen's marker:

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A great stop to end a fabulous tour and I am deeply indebted to Dale Booth our guide, who made the tour such a success. The group of people who took the tour also deserve my praise for the great contribution they all made by way of constant good spirits and jovial atmosphere which they provided.

As the 'Oscar Wilde' steamed out of Cherbourg Harbour, I was glad to hear plans afoot for a return trip next year

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi John,

I have no firm plans just yet but most of the group told me to keep them updated on any proposals for a return trip next year.

I would avoid the first week in June as it will be difficult to get accommodation and the sites will all be busy. The American Cemetery at Colleville is busy all summer regardless of when you go, as is Pointe du Hoc. I was surprised at how empty the beaches were for the first week in July but it was not ideal sunbathing weather. There were a few guys out harness racing on Utah but nothing that I would consider obtrusive.

Best to get to any site as early in the morning as possible.

Keep me updated on your plans and I'll see if I can tie in with you

Regards,

Pat