France 2015 - Day 2 - Pointe de Hoc

Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 100 ft (30 m) cliff overlooking the English Channel on the coast of Normandy in northern France. It is the highest point between Utah Beach to the west and Omaha Beach to the east.

The German army fortified the area with concrete casements and gun pits. On D-Day (6 June 1944) U.S. Army Rangers scaled the 100-foot cliffs and seized the German artillery pieces that could have fired on the American landing troops at Omaha and Utah beaches.

The holes in the ground are shell and bomb craters.





The battery was initially built in 1943 to house six captured French First World War vintage GPF 155mm K418(f) guns positioned in open concrete gun pits.

One of gun pits. The rectangles on the left side were ready use magazines the main magazine is the concrete bunker in the background.



These are ready use ammunition bunkers in the gun pits.



 To provide increased defensive capability, the Germans began to improve the defences of the battery in the spring of 1944, with enclosed H671 concrete casements. The plan was to build six casements but two were unfinished when the location was attacked.

The 155mm guns would have threatened the Allied landings on Omaha and Utah beaches when finished, risking heavy casualties to the landing forces.



Also built was a observation bunker and mounts for 20mm anti-aircraft guns.

Upon reaching the fortifications, most of the Rangers learned for the first time that the main objective of the assault, the artillery battery, had been removed. The Rangers regrouped at the top of the cliffs, and a small patrol went off in search of the guns. Two different patrols found five of the six guns nearby (the sixth was being fixed elsewhere) and destroyed their firing mechanisms.

This bunker became the HQ and aid post when captured by the rangers.

On top of the bunker is the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument erected by the French to honour elements of the US American Second Ranger Battalion under the command of Lt. Col. James E. Rudder. 



The monument is supposed to resemble a Rangers Dagger. I can't help thinking it looks like something else.

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Looking out of the observation bunker



Looking down the cliff from the monument.





 Looking west towards Utah beach.


Looking Towards Omaha Beach (around that point in the distance).



Ammo Bunker.

France 2015 - Day 2 - Utah Beach

We finally got to our first planned stop. Utah Beach. Utah beach was the westernmost of the five landing beaches.



The objective at Utah was to secure a beachhead on the Cotentin Peninsula, the location of important port facilities at Cherbourg. The amphibious assault, primarily by the US 4th Infantry Division and 70th Tank Battalion, was supported by airborne landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division.

Pano of the area just behind the beach, which is just over the ridge (sand dune) in the distance.

The Musée du Débarquement (Utah beach Museum) in just right of centre with the various memorials on the left.



Close up of the museum buildings



Looking toward the memorials, the things in the foreground are hedgehogs designed to stop tanks

Jo in one of the fortifications just inland from the beach. This would have a machine gun in a steel turret like those shown in the museum pictures below 

A view of the fortifications on the dunes above the beach



And the beach itself looking west



Utah Beach American Memorial



1st Engineer Special Brigade Memorial



US Navy Memorial.

Higgins Boat memorial. This was the most common type of landing craft used on D Day, and throughout World War II.

Many of the roads in the area are now named after American Soldiers.

Gun Emplacement on the ridge overlooking the beach

There is an excellent museum on the beach (although the tank is wrong for 1944)



German Mauser and weapons



Fortification like the one Jo was standing in outside.



PAK 40 German Anti Tank gun





DUKW amphibious transport.



Trench system





German MG 42 Machine Gun. The best Machine gun of the war and variants of it are still in service today.



The pride of the museum is a B-26G Marauder. Whilst this one didn't fly over D Day it is depicted as an aircraft that did, from the 386th Bomb Group, 9th Air Force USAAF.

It is one of only three surviving B-26's in the world today.

France 2015 - Day 2 - Saint-Marie du Mont

After following the Tank tracks on the main road into Carentan to check out what they were up to, (nothing much it seemed, just hanging out in the centre of the town), we returned to our original plan and set out for Utah Beach.

On the way we stopped in a small town called Saint-Marie du Mont.

 US paratroops from 101st Airborne division dropped all over this place on D Day. Throughout the village, there are wall plaques that describe the events n D Day (you can see one on the side of the church in this image). 



 And on this building



The church at Sainte Marie Du Mont. The tower was used by the Germans on D Day as an observation tower.

 

Street scene from Sainte Marie Du Mont, in the far left in the trailer are roasting chickens, in a traditional French style.



 Interesting what you find for sale in some French shop windows, a MP 40 (there were other weapons tot he right but this one took my fancy). If I thought Australian Customs would have let me kept it I'd have bought it home , it was only 730 Euro



On way back through town after visiting Utah Beach we came across this Church.



These road markers were all along the main roads in Normandy

 Typical Norman Village Street.