4/1/2024 0 Comments World war 2 omaha beachHere lay a battlefield, one that shaped so many lives. It was almost as though I might walk a bit further and find my grandfather’s boot prints. What struck me the most was that the beach seemed the same as what I had seen in pictures from 1944. As I held it, all I could think about was my grandfather who, seventy-five years earlier, had stormed this very beach. Near the water, I bent down and scooped some up in my hands. I immediately wanted to go down to the sand, to feel it, to touch it. And then, I finally saw it-the huge beach where my grandfather fought. The camembert really made an impression on me! We also tried Calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy.īright and early the next morning, my wife and I got in our rental car and made the short drive (about 20 minutes) from Bayeux to Omaha Beach. Before heading back to our inn, we ate several delicious cheeses. Why did I want to revisit these items before going to Omaha Beach? To try to understand as best I could who he was at the time of the invasion, what he looked like, what he had to endure. Another showed him roughhousing with infantrymen at an army base somewhere. I had one of him in 1943, dressed in his uniform, waiting to be deployed. During dinner, I pulled out some old photos of my grandfather from the war. My wife was even courageous enough to try tripe, which she said was far tastier than she had imagined. There we feasted on seafood: briny oysters, sweet shrimp, delicate lobster. Our hostess had an excellent suggestion for our meal, a restaurant housed in a 15th century building. It made little sense to go to the beach if we couldn’t see anything, so we decided to leave our belongings at the boutique inn (part of the wonderful Gîtes de France network), ask for a recommendation for dinner, and go replenish ourselves before what I was sure would be an emotional morning trip. We didn’t reach our accommodations in Bayeux until past nightfall. Except all I could think of was my grandfather and all the brave troops from many different countries who fought and died on this very land. We drove through the little stone villages and past apple orchards. In Caen, we rented a car then headed toward Omaha Beach. Map of the landing beaches in Omaha beach, Normandy But instead of exploring the city of light (we’d do that later), I gave my best bonjour to the border guard, and then we got on a TGV train right at the Charles de Gaulle Airport and started off for Caen, in the department of Calvados. Together with my wife, I landed in Paris in the spring (you know-April in Paris). Finally, seven years later, I got my chance. Ever since then, I’ve longed to travel from my home in Ohio to France to see the place where he fought. But I knew it was the right thing to do.”ĭuring one of our last conversations, grandpa told me, “if you ever get the chance, go visit Omaha beach.” He died a few months later. I would look at him as an innocent adolescent and say, “Grandpa, weren’t you scared? How did you possibly pluck up the courage to hop off your landing craft and storm the beach?” He’d always respond with something to this effect, “I was terrified. Out of all of his stories, I was most intrigued by his memories of the invasion of France on D-Day. He even once showed me a knife he brought back to America from the battlefields of France. Sometimes, he brought out a picture or showed me his dog tags. On Sunday evenings, when my whole family went to grandpa’s for dinner, he would often take me aside and tell me about the war. As I reached my teens, however, that changed. Perhaps he thought I was too young to hear about such violent history. At first, I only heard snippets of information-a mention here, a reference there. Throughout my childhood, my grandfather told me about the Second World War. I visited Normandy to see the beaches where my grandfather fought during WWII.
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