Today was our first day in Normandy, France. After a nice breakfast (containing scrambled eggs) we met our tour guide who took us to a site where the 52nd airborne division landed before D-Day. We were told an incredible story of two American soldiers that were best friends during the war but got wounded and separated during a fight. After the war they both assumed the other was dead. However, 60 years later they were reunited through a series of phone calls and family members information.
The area we were in today was where the “A” division landed in the flooded fields. The paratroopers landed with an average of 150lbs of equipment on their person at 20mph. The objective of this division was to defend a bridge from the Germans. This bridge served as one of the few modes to get vehicles farther inland.
Our next point of interest was a village about 30 minutes from Bayeux. In this village there were American paratroopers dropped incidentally in the middle of the night. One of the paratroopers landed on top of the church where he was hanging for hours hiding from German soldiers. After he was cut free we learned that he lived on past D-Day.
The main attraction of the day was Utah beach. We went for a walk all the way out to the German pilings still sitting in the sand from D-Day. This was an indescribable experience – unreal to think about the bloodshed and the lives that were lost along this 60 miles of coastline.
Our last stop of the day was a church in the village of Angoville. This church was the center of one of the D-Day battles. It flip flopped between the German and American power throughout the fighting. However, two American medics turned it into a hospital that served anyone; French, German, and American. Not a bullet was fired inside the church nor at the building. These two medics saved hundreds of lives on D-Day.
I write to you now from our tour bus with that cool Frenchmen driver Phillipe. We’re on our way back to our hotel in Bayeux where we will decompress and head out to dinner!
Nic Nelson
