I was recently lucky enough to visit the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France. It was a truly humbling experience. Standing on the clifftops and looking down at Gold and Sword beaches, it's hard to see how anyone made it. It really gave me a good deal of perspective on my own life. Indeed, it's one of the inspirations behind this blog.
In Arromanches, the site of the Mulberry Harbours, there is a 360 Degree cinema. It has 9 screens arranged around a large room and it shows a combination of archive footage of the landings, cut with footage of the town today. It was very moving and it really helped me to imagine what it must have been like for the soldiers arriving in occupied France. There was also a small museum which contained uniforms, medals and the engine of a fighter plane which was discovered 5 metres underground! At this museum were models of the harbours which really brought home the scale of the operation.
After lunch (that seems a little frivolous somehow) we drove to Bayeux to look at the tapestry. It is an amazing thing. Something like 70 metres long, it shows the story behind the Norman invasion of Britian in 1066. It was truly astonishing to see it "in the flesh". It's beautiful. After the tapestry, we walked to another museum. It contains a great exhibition of some of the heavy weapons that were used during the Normandy campaigns. It was great to see all the hardware that was there. Another path into creating a more vivid picture in my mind of the conditions that were extant.
Following the Bayeux museum, we walked across the road to the British cemetery. It was a truly humbling experience. Something strange seemed to happen. It was as if we were walking into a church. Before we went through the gates, people were laughing, joking and horsing around, as soon as we got through the gates, there was silence and reverence. It was a beautiful place, haunting. There were British, Canadian and Polish graves and in one corner (in the distance to the left of this picture) there were a few German graves. It was a wonderful expression of compassion and kindness. Somehow it felt like it was an attempt at reconcilliation. You got the feeling that it was trying to bury the past and move on. That the German people, the German soldiers weren't necessarily part of the machinery and were simply doing what they were told. In the same way the Allied soldiers were.
The American cemetery at Omaha, I'm sorry to say, had none of the austerity or sense of reverence of the British cemetery. It felt far too ostentatious. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about it felt wrong, as if it wasn't genuine. This led however to an interesting discussion with a friend yesterday. He had visited US memorials in Washington D. C. and had come to a similar conclusion. It seems that in Europe following 2,000 years of near-constant conflict, the conflicts in the first half of the 20th century finally showed us the hideousness of war. In America, and in the cemetery at Omaha, it seems that people are still "proud" of their war dead. In Europe, I feel that we are finally, as we should be, horrified of the impact of war.
All in all, though, it was a very humbling experience, and it gave me a great perspective on my own life. Especially seeing so many gravestones marking the resting place of men 6 years younger than me. It raised the old question, could I have done it? And I still feel like I could.
Following the Bayeux museum, we walked across the road to the British cemetery. It was a truly humbling experience. Something strange seemed to happen. It was as if we were walking into a church. Before we went through the gates, people were laughing, joking and horsing around, as soon as we got through the gates, there was silence and reverence. It was a beautiful place, haunting. There were British, Canadian and Polish graves and in one corner (in the distance to the left of this picture) there were a few German graves. It was a wonderful expression of compassion and kindness. Somehow it felt like it was an attempt at reconcilliation. You got the feeling that it was trying to bury the past and move on. That the German people, the German soldiers weren't necessarily part of the machinery and were simply doing what they were told. In the same way the Allied soldiers were.The American cemetery at Omaha, I'm sorry to say, had none of the austerity or sense of reverence of the British cemetery. It felt far too ostentatious. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about it felt wrong, as if it wasn't genuine. This led however to an interesting discussion with a friend yesterday. He had visited US memorials in Washington D. C. and had come to a similar conclusion. It seems that in Europe following 2,000 years of near-constant conflict, the conflicts in the first half of the 20th century finally showed us the hideousness of war. In America, and in the cemetery at Omaha, it seems that people are still "proud" of their war dead. In Europe, I feel that we are finally, as we should be, horrified of the impact of war.
All in all, though, it was a very humbling experience, and it gave me a great perspective on my own life. Especially seeing so many gravestones marking the resting place of men 6 years younger than me. It raised the old question, could I have done it? And I still feel like I could.
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