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38
winter
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spr ing
T
here is something magnetic about the beaches of
Normandy that, ever since the World War Two Allied
landings, have attracted Americans of all ages. Most of
the young men and boys that landed that chilly morning June 6, 1944
are now either old men or dead, but men and women born afterwards
whose fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and uncles were among the landed
continue to make the pilgrimage to the sacred shores of Normandy, as
do hundreds of thousands of visitors from generations born decades after
the events every year.
If you are among those drawn to this peninsula on the French side
of the English Channel to pay tribute to the heroes that fell here, our
D-Day
Landings
The Normandy Battlefields
by James Buckley
recommendation is to not do it alone. There are guided tours one can
join and private guides that will take you to whatever portion of the 40
miles of landing beaches you wish to visit. Whether your interests lie in
the church steeple at Sainte-Mère Eglise, the sandstone cliffs of Pointe du
Hoc, the embattlements at Utah and/or Omaha Beach, glider landing sites
near Pegasus Bridge, the Peace Museum in Caen, the American Cemetery,
the impenetrable hedgerows, remains of the artificial port devised and
constructed by the Allies off Arromanches, or any of the myriad sights
of this most famous of World War Two battlefields, a private guide, we
believe, is the way to go.
The hallowed ground on top of where President Reagan’s “Boys of Pointe
du Hoc” scaled 100-foot cliffs to free France