In fact, it wasn't actually any extra special kind of day for us, it was simply the day that we had booked to spend on a tour of the World War II D-Day beaches in Normandy.
We got up extra early in Rouen and hopped in the car to make our way to the city of Bayeux near the coast of Normany for the start of the tour.
This is a German roadblock that still survives.
First stop, some gun bunkers on very high ground looking out to sea. These were built by Germans (with the aid of the then cooperating French) to protect the coastline looking towards England.
This one received a miraculously clear hit from a ship out to sea within range, completely vaporising the Germans inside manning the gun, and ripping the gun itself apart. It doesn't look like much, but it would take an incredible amount of force to do this to steel like this.
This is that same gun and bunker from the outside. You'd hardly know anything had happened to it, huh?
A mess in the inside, though!
When the French were 'cooperating' with the Germans who took residence in France, they were told a few methods by the English as to how to sabotage the Germans' efforts a little, without compromising their own necks. One possibility was to deliberately reduce the quality of the concrete that these bunkers were made of, so that they were more easily destroyed.
One method of doing this was to put sugar in the concrete mix. But since sugar was such a precious asset in wartime, it would have been a very great sacrifice indeed. The next option? Urinating in the concrete mix, where the acidity would delay the setting of the concrete.
Although it's clear that these bunkers are well and truly still standing, so they're certainly strong enough, there are a few signs of the softness of the concrete - like this imprint from a shell...
Or this imprint from a German soldier's very small shoe!
It's hard to tell, but Tom is in that right window pretending he's manning the gun. You can see his very white little hand pointing out to sea.
As usual, I had a bit of a face-off with the gun.
It's hard to believe that this was a warzone. The countryside is so beautiful.
Tom pretended he was commanding the war using his phone...
And climbed into a hole for mortar storage...
And I kept admiring the countryside.
There's Dave and Cassie...
We drove through some lovely little village lanes...
And some wide open fields...
And then we reached our next historical destination, Omaha Beach.
It is an absolutely enormous beach.
Our guide drew us a diagram of it, and how it was set up from both a German armament perspective and the English plan of attack perspective.
He showed us a few pictures of people involved in the landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and the stories of what happened to them. Like the ANZAC campaign at Gallipoli, so many many things went wrong for the Allies on D-Day just at Omaha that it's a miracle that anyone survived.
Next stop, the American cemetary.
A map of 'Military Operations in Western Europe' from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945.
This is the memorial area for those whose bodies were never found, or maybe simply unidentifiiable.
They place a little bronze flower next to names whose bodies have since been identified.
The construction of this cemetary was interesting. The government asked the families of the fallen if they would like their loved ones' bodies sent back to America, or left in the country where they died. Expecting the answer to be well and truly the former, they packed up each body for transport in little shipping containers before the families answered. Most answers came back the latter. So, the shipping containers were set in concrete rows as they were, with each cross firmly lodged in the concrete. This creates the straightest lines of crosses you will ever see in a cemetary.
There's a lovely little chapel on the grounds.
It has a beautiful mosaic ceiling.
Next stop, the 'fancy' end of Omaha Beach. So called by our tour guide because it was the side that had a few tourist-oriented buildings (like a casino) even then in the leadup to WWII. It looks like it would be a lovely beach to swim in, if it weren't so cold!
It also has this wall, built prior to the war. I made the mistake of volunteering for an experiment, to see how the Allies would have fared trying to climb over this wall to make their way off the beach into German held territory. They would have had their heads blown off.
The gun that the Germans had in position up on the bluff is still there.
With a memorial above it.
Next stop, Pointe du Hoc, a high point that held a commanding view of both Omaha and Utah Beaches. It stands above 30 metre cliffs, and the Germans had several guns at this position that threatened the success of the planned D-day landings on the beaches. The US Ranger Assault Group had the task of landing, climbing the cliffs and taking control of those guns.
They encountered many many difficulties (go on the tour if you want the details!), but were successful enough to take those guns out of play for D-day.
Tom decided to pretend he was a soldier.
Here he is entering the building with his pretend gun.
Now exiting, aiming at me.
The monument.
The inside of one of the bunkers. There was a fire inside this building (can't remember the circumstances, I'm afraid). All of the timber beams on the ceiling (placed there to support the concrete while it dried, we imagine), and the vertical timber bits (you can see the outline of them) are either blackened or completely gone.
And here is Tom demonstrating how poor the original concrete mix must have been.
We left Pointe du Hoc for the little village of Sainte Mere Eglise, where we stopped for a spot of lunch, and admired their beautiful church. That little white thing that looks like a sheet up on its roof is actually a memorial to a paratrooper who accidentally landed right there, hanging off the roof. You can just see a little statue hanging beneath the white parachute in his memory. In actual fact, he apparently landed on the other side, but it was thought to be more aesthetically pleasing to have him hanging on this side.
They really love their American paratroopers in this town. Practically every shop or cafe has some little memento to them.
They even have a museum with a permanent paratrooper exhibit.
Tom admired this shovel. Quite similar to the one he was admiring in the market in Florence, actually!
We moved on to the rest of the museum after that.
After the museum, the tour became much more focused on the TV series 'Band of Brothers', which was very focused on this particular area of battle.
Image sourced from Singlarity
We toured a few of the spots where parts of the series were filmed, and where significant events happened in the Ally campaign.
This photo was taken in this very spot, when they seized this building from the Germans.
Same again. You can see the shape of those windows in the photograph.
The memorial to a plane that went down, killing everyone on board.
And here, a memorial to a group who took control of some German guns hidden in the treeline in the field behind.
That's the tree line in question.
And the map of the field showing what happened.
Our last stop on the tour was Utah Beach.
This is a nearby building that was used as a gun bunker. The Germans were so clever. They painted windows on it, and even had flower boxes underneath them to make it look like it was a house from the air, to prevent the Allies from bombing it.
I fell in love with the rustic charm of the beach entrance.
And that was the end of a very very long day. The tour was exceptionally good. To actually understand everything that happened in the Normandy region on D-Day it would take years of research, but we have definitely gained a huge respect for what the Allies were able to accomplish there to turn the war around, with so much stacked against them. Thank goodness the good guys won, eh?
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