In three days it will be the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy. I’ve wanted to visit the D-Day beaches for a long time. Today is finally the day.
Last night our boat traveled back up the Seine and docked at the small town of Caudebec-en-Caux. At Caudebec-en-Caux we boarded a bus to make the 90-minute ride to Colleville sur Mer, where the American Cemetery is located. Our tour guide, who was with us on the bus, was a youngish French lady. As we made our way to the highway, she started telling us a few things about the D-Day invasion . I thought I already knew quite a bit about the invasion, but I soon realized I knew next to nothing about D-Day, really.
Big Decisions
She started by giving us some background about the planning and decisions being considered by Allied commanders early on. She warned us that she could talk about D-Day all day long without even realizing it, so if our ears needed a break, please give her a signal. No one did.
The first question was, why attack at all? That was an easy one. All Allied commanders agreed that wars are not won by being on defense. You have to be on offense, taking the battle to the enemy. That meant crossing the English Channel in force.
There were two mutually-exclusive options: soften the landing zone with aerial bombing for days before bringing in troops, or attack all of a sudden with full force. The advantage of advance aerial bombing is obvious, but the big disadvantage is that the element of surprise would be lost. As soon as the attack site is known, every Panzer tank in France will be on its way.
The second option, in theory, was to catch the enemy off-guard and secure a stronghold before the bulk of enemy reinforcements could get there. Nazi forces were well-equipped, but spread out over a large area. Attack where they weren’t amassed in strength, then hamper their movement as much as possible. That’s the strategy that won out.
Where to Attack?
The next question was where to attack. That one was tougher. There had to be a harbor suitable for sustained unloading of massive amounts of troops, armor, and supplies. But all suitable harbors along the English Channel were now fortified Nazi strongholds.
Allied forces had already learned the hard way, at Diepp, that attacking a fortified harbor from the sea is a really bad option. The Allied plan would ultimately call for the creation of a new harbor, built from scratch in just days. Nothing like it had ever been tried.
The Atlantic Wall
The Nazis had a few things to consider as well. Hitler had advertised that the his “Atlantic Wall,” was impenetrable to invasion. He sent Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox himself, to inspect fortifications. Rommel was shocked at how little had been done. He got the job to make a “real” Atlantic Wall.
Rommel went to work with his usual gusto. The Nazis poured tons of cement to fortify gun emplacements. They laid hundreds of thousands of mines, (the final estimate is four million), both in the water and on land. They rigged booby traps and constructed obstacles of every kind under water, on beaches, and on the cliffs.
Rommel took his job seriously, but in truth, he and all of the Nazi command believed the imminent invasion would come at the closest point to England, the port of Pas-de-Calais. The Allies did everything in their power to reinforce that belief. Double agents fed the Nazis bad Info. A fake army that included hundreds of fake, inflatable tanks, trucks, and landing craft was amassed across from Pas-de-Calais.
By the time we arrived at Colleville-sur-Mer, our guide had really set the scene for the D-Day attack. Overgrown hedges separating patches of green fields flanked the two-lane road leading to the cemetery. “The hedgerows,” I thought to myself. I remember reading about what a nightmare it was, rooting the enemy out of fields crisscrossed by hedgerows.
The Normandy American Cemetery
At the cemetery, a large stage had been erected for the 75th anniversary. A ceremony was underway when we arrived. We walked along a path bordering row after row of white marble crosses standing in green grass. Thousands of crosses were on our left. Fateful Omaha Beach was on our immediate right. That is a place that will make you stop and think.
9,387 Americans are buried here. The British cemetery and the Canadian Cemetery are nearby. There’s also a stark-looking German cemetery down the road containing 21,000 graves. There are 27 other war cemeteries in Normandy.
Nothing remains on Omaha Beach that gives away what happened here 75 years ago. You have to use your imagination. Some of the honorees who’ll be here in a few days won’t have to use their imaginations – just their memories.
To be continued…
