The route follows D 514 past Grandcamp-les-Bains to its junction with N 13, then continues west through Isigny and Carentan to the intersection with D 913, which leads to Utah Beach. The flat terrain at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula contrasts sharply with the high, rugged bluffs to the east. Dunes, still studded with squat concrete bunkers, back Utah and the beaches extending northward.
As you follow the route inland toward the Crisbecq Battery, Objective WXYZ, and Ste.-Mre-Eglise, the land gradually rises and the bocage reappears. From Ste.-Mre-Eglise you can either take N 13 north to Cherbourg to visit the Fort du Roule or return along it to Bayeux. In the latter case it will take you by the German military cemetery at La Cambe and the exposition at Surrain. The approximate distance of the tour from Bayeux to Ste.-Mre-Eglise is ninety kilometers.
Foremost among Bayeux's Battle of Normandy sites is the MusŽe MŽmorial de la Bataille de Normandie (1)¡ located on the Boulevard Fabian Ware (actually part of the traffic loop which circles the town). Open April through June, September and October 1000-1230 and 1400-1830; open July and August 0930-1900; open November through March on weekends 1030-1230 and 1400-1830. Admission charge.
By driving northwest a short distance along the Boulevard Fabian Ware you will pass a British military cemetery and memorial ( 2).
Continuing north to the Rond-Point de Vaucelles (where N 13 branches off toward Cherbourg) you will pass a memorial (3) commemorating both the landing on 6 June and De Gaulle's arrival in France on the fourteenth.
On N 13, just 0.5 kilometers west of Vaucelles, a stone monument marks the site (A) of the A 13 airfield, built by the 846th Air Engineer Battalion and used by the 373d and 406th Fighter Groups and the 394th Bombardment Group. This memorial was dedicated on 6 June 1989; unfortunately its location just off the heavily traveled N 13 makes a stop hazardous.
There is a monument commemorating De Gaulle's first speech in liberated France (delivered in Bayeux on 14 June) in the Place Charles de Gaulle (4), two blocks east of the cathedral, and a plaque to the 56th British Infantry Brigade inside the cathedral (5). Nearby is a duplicate of the WWI memorial found in the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. The Queen Mother of England recently dedicated a commemorative window on the right wall across from the altar. Another plaque to the 50th Division is attached to a wall facing the cathedral's south side.
While in Bayeux, the traveler should not miss that relic of an earlier invasion: the Bayeux Tapestry. Since 1983, the 231-foot long tapestry, depicting the events surrounding the Norman invasion of England in 1066, has been housed in a new museum on the Rue de Nesmond (6). Signs throughout the town will direct you to the museum. Open June through September 0900-1900; open October through March 0900-1200 and 1400-1800; open April through May 0900-1230 and 1400-1830. Admission charge.
¥ Bold numbers and letters are keyed to Maps 7, 8, and 9.
Omaha Beach can be most easily reached by taking D 6 out of Bayeux, then turning west on D 514 where the two roads intersect just outside of Port-en-Bessin (9 km). Follow D 514 west (signs mark the way) some 6 km to Colleville-sur-Mer, then turn north 1.5 km to the American Military Cemetery and Memorial (7). Park in the outlying paved lot. Be aware that car break-ins have been frequent in recent years.
The cemetery occupies 172.5 beautifully landscaped acres on the bluff above Omaha Beach. The rows of white marble Latin crosses and Stars of David, some 9,386 in all, stand as silent witnesses to the bitter fighting Americans experienced in the Battle of Normandy. The cemetery is laid out in the form of a Latin cross, with a circular chapel at the intersection of the arms. The chapel is connected visually by a reflecting pool and mall to a semicircular colonnaded memorial. Loggias at each end of the memorial contain maps and accounts of the landings and of the subsequent campaign across northern Europe. In the center of the arc stands a bronze nude allegorical figure representing the "Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves." The names of some 1,557 individuals whose bodies were never recovered are inscribed on the wall of the garden area behind the memorial. Well inside the cemetery entrance is a visitors' center containing a lounge and rest-room facilities. Open all year 0800-1800 (to 2000 on Sundays and holidays).
Walk to the seaward side of the cemetery, opposite the visitors' center, where an overlook commands an excellent view of the beach below.
An orientation table near the iron railing displays a map of the lodgment area indicating the location of the five landing beaches. From this position you are looking down at the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach where Companies E and F, 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry, were to have landed in the first wave. They were to have been preceded by Company B of the 741st Tank Battalion (DD tanks) and followed by the 18th Regimental Combat Team at H Hour plus 195 minutes. Of the four DD tanks that made it ashore here, one was hit immediately. The remainder of Company B's tanks foundered offshore. Only one boat section from each infantry company waded ashore on Easy Red, losing much of their equipment in the neck-deep water. The tidal current swept the other boats to the east, to Fox Green sector (on your right). Two boat sections from the 116th Infantry, more than a mile east of their landing zone, also came in on Easy Red, fortunately taking only light casualties before finding cover against the shingle embankment at the high-tide mark.
Further to the east, the half-mile of beach facing the E-3 draw, designated Fox Green, was swept by crossing fire from German bunkers along the bluffs. It was along this sector of the beach that the majority of boat sections from Companies E and F landed. Casualties were heavy. After debarking in the neck-deep water, one section of Company F lost seventeen of its thirty-one men trying to reach the shingle. Other sections landing further east lost a third of their strength. Seven men reached the shingle from one boat. Only two of Company F's officers survived the landing.
Company E fared little better. Scattered along a half-mile of Fox Green Beach, the boats came under fire as their ramps dropped. Many men were hit in the water; others tried to submerge themselves and drift in with the tide. Company E took most of its 105 D Day casualties in the water or on the tidal flat leading to the shingle bank. Only Company L of the 16th Infantry, landing still further to the east on Fox Red, came ashore in condition to fight up the bluffs.
Due to the offshore current and some bad navigation, four boat sections of Company E, 116th Infantry, also landed on Fox Green and were promptly shot to pieces. Three of the sections suffered over thirty casualties within a few minutes of debarking. Captain Laurence A. Madill, the company commander, hit while recrossing the beach, was heard to cry out before dying, "Senior noncom, take the men off the beach."
Some of the later companies landing on Easy Red and Fox Green sectors took equally heavy casualties, but others, notably those of the 1st Battalion, escaped the blood bath.
By 0800, the situation in the Easy Red and Fox Green sectors was critical. Naval gunfire had been lifted to avoid hitting the infantry as they moved toward the bluffs. Vehicles, now beginning to reach the beach in large numbers, were unable to cross the shingle bank and were rapidly being destroyed by German fire. Most of the infantrymen who had managed to cross the tidal flat lay huddled against the shingle, unable or unwilling to move.
At this critical juncture, Colonel George A. Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry, landing at 0815 with the surviving half of the command group, put it this way: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die now let's get the hell out of here." Already, sections of Companies E and G had begun to work their way to the top of the bluffs between the E-1 and E-3 draws. Taylor quickly followed, setting up his command post just under the top of the bluff (not far from where you are standing). From there he continued to direct men inland. Just after 1000, first elements of the 18th Infantry landed on Easy Red, and by 1130 the E-1 draw was being opened by the various engineer units that had come ashore earlier.
At about this same time, further to the east, other bands of infantrymen were also penetrating German defenses in the less heavily defended areas between the draws. By midday it was becoming clear that the landing on Omaha Beach was not going to be defeated at the water's edge. However, the margin of victory was slim, provided by a few hundred courageous infantrymen, tank crews, and engineers.
From the overlook take the improved path down the bluff to a second orientation table (remembering that it is a steep climb back up) which describes the artificial harbor (Mulberry A) built here to supply the American forces ashore.
Mulberry A was largely destroyed by the "Great Storm" of 19-21 June. Parts were salvaged and used to repair Mulberry B at Arromanches. Remaining elements are visible today off Vierville-sur-Mer. Even before the storm, the Americans had begun the practice of "drying out" LST'sÑgrounding them at high tide so that they could be unloaded directly on the beach, and then floating them off on the rising tide. So despite the loss of Mulberry A, the tonnage landed on Omaha and Utah beaches met projected schedules.
Continue down the path to the beach itself. You may return by the same route or take another path up the bluffs along the west side of the E-3 draw.
This path, which begins just past the beach house, leads to two monuments. The lower one (8), standing atop a German blockhouse, commemorates the D Day efforts of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade. Elements of this unit, landing from an LCI about an hour and a half after the first wave, were assigned the job of clearing paths through the beach mines and obstacles. Under fire, the engineers used their bulldozers to cut a road up the west side of the E-3 draw. For its heroic efforts, the unit was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
Further up the path stands an imposing obelisk (9) inscribed with the names of the men of the 1st Infantry Division who died on the beach below and during the advance inland (6 June to 24 July).
This area, known as the W 62 strongpoint has been recently cleared and excavated, so that it is now possible to visualize the powerful German defenses that faced the first waves.
It is possible to reach the W 62 position by driving to a small lot east of the main parking area and walking down to the monuments.
Dog Green and Charlie Sectors
To visit the western edge of Omaha Beach (Dog and Charlie sectors) return to D 514 and drive west to St. Laurent-sur-Mer, then follow the road (D 517) down to the beach at Les Moulins (5 km). CD signs mark the way.
Directly ahead on the sea wall is a CD monument (10)Ñthis one commemorates the landing on Omaha Beach. (Note the inscriptions to the 1st and 29th Infantry divisions on the flanks of the monument.) A monument (11) to the 6th Engineer Special Brigade is located at the end of the Rue du 116th RI US, a narrow lane that begins just behind the cafe facing the CD monument. By driving east along the beach road you can reach a memorial (12) commemorating both the 2d Infantry Division and the Provisional Engineers Special Brigade.
Drive west from Les Moulins to Vierville-sur-Mer.
The old beach road of forty years ago has been turned into an improved roadway lined with beach-houses. As you drive west, you will pass a stele (13) on your left marking the site where the American dead were first buried after the landing.
Stop at the memorial (14) atop the blockhouse near the west end of the roadway.
You are now standing at the bottom of the Vierville (D-1) draw, exactly on the dividing line between the Charlie and Dog Green sectors. This memorial fittingly commemorates the National Guardsmen who fought in France in both world wars; the mile of beach you have just driven encompasses most of the Dog sector of Omaha Beach, the D Day landing area of the 116th Regiment (Virginia National Guard), whose antecedent was the famous Stonewall Brigade of the Confederate States Army.
The initial assault on Dog Green was carried out by three unitsÑCompany B, 743d Tank Battalion (sixteen DD tanks); Company A, 116th Infantry (six boat sections in LCA's, followed by a command boat); and three LCM's (Landing Craft, Mechanized) carrying units of the 146th Special Engineer Task ForceÑall coming ashore a few minutes on either side of 0630. The collective stories of these units make one aware of how near defeat the landing on Omaha Beach hovered during its first hours.
The tankers of Company B suffered first. Because of the heavy seas, the DD's were not launched offshore. During the effort to bring them directly to the beach, one of the LCT's was sunk by German fire; half of the company's tanks and all but one of its officers were lost. The eight surviving Shermans began their fire mission at the water's edge.
Company A's turn came next. The boat sections took crippling losses before anyone set foot on the beach. LCA 5 foundered a thousand yards offshore; six soldiers drowned in the heavy seas. Boat 3 was hit a hundred yards from the beach; thirteen died. No one saw Boat 6 go down; there were no survivors, and only half the bodies were recovered later. As the remaining three boats grounded on the offshore sandbars (in front of you), they were swept by fire from flanking German positions. The heavily laden infantrymen, crouched behind the boats' bulwarks in three files, could hear machine-gun bullets ricocheting off the still raised ramps. Half the men from Boats 1 and 4 died in the water within fifteen feet of the ramps, either from wounds or by drowning. No unwounded officers or sergeants made the beach. The men who did struggle ashore lay at the water's edge until the incoming tide overtook them. Some took cover behind beach obstacles, only to be hit there. Others retreated back into the sea, lying on their backs, noses above water, hoping to drift in with the rising tide. Within minutes of touchdown, Company A no longer existed as a fighting unit. Most of its riflemen never fired their weapons. By H plus 30 minutes, two-thirds were dead.
Further to the west (to your left), two boat sections of Company C, 2d Rangers, coming in on Charlie sector, fared little better. One LCA was hit by an anti-tank shell, killing the company commander and a dozen men. Fifteen men from the second boat were hit as the ramp dropped. By the time the survivors managed to cross the 250 yards of sand to the base of the cliffs, thirty-five of the company's sixty-four men were casualties.
Landing to the east of Dog Green in the first wave, Company F took heavy losses. However, some sections of Company G, coming ashore at the same time on Easy Green, reached the low sea wall above the high-tide mark intact. The companies landing after 0700 as part of the second wave had similar experiences. Covered by smoke from the grass fires on the bluffs, Company C found shelter along the sea wall; but, preceding it by ten minutes, Company D was shot to pieces before the first man reached the sand. Fortunately, many companies in the later waves landed with lighter casualties. At 0730, the 116th Command Group, including Brigadier General Norman D. "Dutch" Cota, the assistant division commander, and Colonel Charles D. W. Canham, commanding the 116th, rode LCVP 71 in on Dog White. Urged on by these two officers, men of Company C and the 5th Ranger Battalion blew gaps in the wire along the beach road and crossed the 150 yards to the base of the bluffs. From there, still covered by smoke from the grass fires, they worked their way to the top. By 0830, they had overrun the German rifle pits and trenches along the crest.
Because of the east-setting current, few of the Army-Navy Special Engineer Task Force teams landed on their assigned sectors of Dog Beach. Despite their dispersal, the fast-rising tide (twenty-two feet on D Day), and enemy fire, they succeeded in clearing two paths through the obstacles on Dog White and Easy Green sectors before taking cover behind the sea wall. Casualties ran as high as 41 percent among the engineers.
By the narrowest of margins, a few hundred men had managed to penetrate the German defenses on Omaha Beach. They made the difference between defeat and victory. General Omar N. Bradley summed up most people's feelings about those few when he wrote that "every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero." Before leaving this section of Omaha Beach, note the block house and the remains of Mulberry A in Charlie sector, and a small stone marker carrying a brass plaque commemorating the D Day landing of the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion.
As you drive through Vierville to rejoin D 514, you will pass a small private exposition, Exposition Omaha, 6 Juin 1944, housed in a Nissen hut.
To reach the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument (15), now maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, follow the CD direction signs west along D 514 to the car park outside the monument (8 km).
The Pointe du Hoc today retains much of its battlefield character because of the destruction left by the rain of bombs and shells the Allies unleashed to neutralize this rocky point. The much feared battery was bombed three times before D Day, then hit from the air again that morning. The battleships Texas and Arkansas battered the area with their 14- and 12-inch guns just after dawn. Later in the morning, the destroyer Satterlee saturated the position with her 5-inch guns in direct support of the Rangers. This concentration of fire left craters and ruined casemates which forty years have yet to erase.
From the barbed-wire fence along the cliff top, you can look down the hundred-foot cliff to the east beach where three companies of the 2d Ranger Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James E. Rudder, landed on D Day. Their mission was to scale the cliff, then silence the six 155-mm howitzers thought to threaten the landing operations on both American beaches.
The Rangers came in forty minutes late in ten LCA's, trailed by four DUKW's and two supply boats. They lost one of each boat type on the run in. The LCA's were equipped with rocket-propelled grappling hooks which were fired as the boats grounded under the cliff. Despite small-arms fire, improvised mines, and grenades lobbed from above, the Rangers used their rope and aluminum ladders to scale the cliff within five minutes of landing. Ironically, they found the casemates empty of guns, which days before had been moved to new positions further inland. Later that morning, a patrol found the 155s unguarded and spiked them. Colonel Rudder then set up a defensive perimeter and waited for reinforcements. "Located Pointe du Hoc," he managed to signal V Corps that afternoon, "mission accomplishedÑneed ammunition and reinforcementÑmany casualties." Those reinforcements were to have come from Rangers of the 2d and 5th battalions waiting offshore. Because Rudder's assault was late, the Rangers assumed that it had failed and landed instead on Omaha Beach. It took them two days to fight their way overland to Rudder's relief. By then, his force had been reduced to about ninety effectives. Rudder received the Distinguished Service Cross for continuing to lead his men, although twice wounded.
The monument, standing on a German blockhouse which you can enter, consists of a rough granite obelisk flanked by tablets inscribed in French and English.
An impressive memorial to two French squadrons (Guyenne and Tunisie) of the RAF Bomber Command stands near the harbor's northeast corner. It was dedicated in 1988. These two French heavy bomber units participated in the D Day bombing of the nearby Maisy gun battery.
The newly opened Ranger Museum, dedicated to telling the story of the 2d U. S. Ranger Battalion and its assault on the Pointe du Hoc, is located further east on the Quai Crampon. Open daily during the summer 0900-1800. Admission charge.
LA CAMBE
German Military Cemetery
To visit La Cambe (16), drive some 4.5 km east of the junction of N 13 and D 514. The cemetery lies south of N 13; there is limited parking near the entrance.
This site, originally an American cemetery, was given to the German government in 1948 after the American dead had been removed to the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. La Cambe now contains over 21,000 German dead.
La Cambe stands in somber contrast to the American, British, and Canadian cemeteries in Normandy, with their open, garden and park-like appearances. We recommend that you spend a few minutes visiting this cemetery.
The ComitŽ du DŽbarquement has erected monuments at both Isigny (17) and Carentan (18). The first commemorates De Gaulle's speech at Isigny on 14 June 1944. The Carentan monument stands outside the mairie (town hall). In 1973, the 101st Airborne Association placed a commemorative plaque on the monument's base. Carentan also remembers the 82d Airborne Division with a summer flower display.
The MusŽe de la LibertŽ occupies a large building further along the N 13 route through town (some 400 meters from the mairie). Open daily 0930-1230 and 1300-1800 mid-June to mid-September; closed November through February (hours and days vary during the rest of the year).
General Omar N. Bradley called the assault landing on Utah Beach "a piece of cake," and it was, compared to that on Omaha. The landing plan called for the 4th Infantry Division (Major General Raymond O. Barton) to land along 2,200 yards of sandy beach on a two-regiment front, two battalions abreast. Colonel James A. Van Fleet's 8th Infantry (including the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry) was to land at 0630, followed by the 22d Infantry in eighty-five minutes and the 12th Infantry at 1030.
DD tanks were to lead the way in, preceded by an intense naval and air bombardment. Various engineer units were scheduled to land close behind the infantry to clear beach obstructions and to blow gaps in the low sea wall paralleling the beach.
The landing of the thirty-two DD tanks was delayed when one of the control ships was sunk by a mine. Four of the tanks were lost when the LCT carrying them sank before they could be launched. In contrast to the heavy losses off Omaha, twenty-eight DD's made it to the beach able to provide fire support for the infantry already ashore.
The strong offshore current carried the first wave of infantry some 2,000 yards south, causing the boats to beach in front of the German strong point at La Grande Dune (a half-mile south of your present location). Fortunately, the defenses there were much weaker than those on the intended beach, due in part to visual bombing by the medium bombers of the IX Bomber Command and naval fire support.
Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, assistant division commander, landed with the first wave, the only general officer to do so on D Day. Shortly after coming ashore, Roosevelt, disregarding his personal safety, surveyed the beach before him and made two decisions that decisively influenced the course of the battle. Realizing that he and the first wave had landed a mile south of their assigned beach, he ordered the following waves to come in on this new beach. Emphasizing that decision for Colonel Eugene Caffey of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, he said, "We're going to start the war from here." He then ordered the advance inland to begin immediately along the causeway leading to Beach Exit 2, directly to his front. For his heroism that morning, Roosevelt was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry, quickly passed across the flooded area behind the beach to higher ground (along the road you have just driven to reach La Madeleine). The 2d Battalion moved along the beach to the south and opened up Exit 1 to Pouppeville and Ste.-Marie-du-Mont. Three battalions of the 22d Infantry moved north to clear opposition from Exit 4. Before dark, the 1st and 2d battalions of the 22d Infantry had linked up with the 502d Parachute Infantry west of St.-Germain-de-Varreville. Late afternoon also found the 2d and 3d battalions, 8th Infantry, astride route N 13 at Les Forges, but they had failed to link up with the 505th Parachute Infantry holding Ste.-Mre-Eglise two miles to the north. By then, the first elements of the 90th Infantry Division had come ashore. The landing on Utah Beach was becoming the big success story of D Day.
St.-Marie-du-Mont
Approximately 1 kilometer before reaching Ste.-Marie-du-Mont, turn right (signs mark the turn) and drive a short distance to the memorial stone (placed here in 1990), that marks the location of the A 16 airstrip used by the 36th Fighter Group, IX Air Force (C).
Fourteen highly visible plaques (text in French) are scattered through Ste.-Marie-du-Mont that tell the story of the D Day events at those sites.
Continue on D 913 toward La Madeleine.
In approximately 3 kilometers you will pass an imposing statue of a merchant seaman, placed here to commemorate the eight hundred Danish seamen who manned ships during the landings.
La Madeleine
In addition to a D Day museum, La Madeleine (19) is the site of these monuments:
¥ An obelisk commemorating the D Day landing of the 4th U.S. Infantry Division.
¥ A stone commemorating the 90th U.S. Infantry Division.
¥ The first (designated 00) of the 1182 cylindrical milestones marking the "Voie de la LibertŽ," the route that the U. S. Third Army followed from Normandy to Bastogne. All bear forty-eight stars and a symbolic torch of liberty patterned after that held aloft by "Liberty" in New York harbor. They are similar to the stones which line La Voie SacrŽe (the Sacred Way), the road from Bar-le-Duc to Verdun along which hundreds of thousands of French soldiers moved in 1916.
¥ A monument to the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, raised in 1945 atop a blockhouse of the W5 strongpoint. This massive blockhouse, captured on D Day and used as the Brigade HQ, contains a memorial crypt (protected by a locked iron grill) commemorating the members of the Brigade who died on Utah Beach. Another plaque commemorates Maj. General Eugene Mead Caffey and the achievements of the Brigade he commanded. Other plaques in French and English commemorate the assault on Utah Beach.
¥ An imposing stone plinth, unveiled by General J. Laughton Collins on 5 June 1984, commemorating "in humble tribute . . . its sons who lost their lives in the liberation of these beaches, June 6, 1944."
¥ A stone plaque marking the presence of the heads of state of the United States, France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands for the 40th anniversary of D Day.
¥ A stone plaque commemorating General Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander.
¥ Some fifty-nine road signs named after members of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade who died in the fighting on Utah Beach.
Nearby, the MusŽe du DŽbarquement ˆ Utah Beach occupies a blockhouse known as W5. Open daily July-September 0930-1830 and April-June, October (Sundays only during the rest of the year) 1000-1200 and 1400-1800. Admission charge.
Les Dunes-de-Varreville
Drive 4 kilometers north of La Madeleine along D 421 to Les Dunes-de-Varreville (20), the original D Day landing objective of the 4th Division.
In 1944, this area was strongly defended, and many of the original blockhouses still squat ominously amid the dunes. Today, the site is marked by a CD monument and a pair of armored vehicles with French insignia which commemorate the 1 August landing of the 2d French Armored Division.
Crisbecq Battery
After leaving Les Dunes-de-Varreville, follow the CD road signs to the Crisbecq Battery (21) located off D 69. The route inland to the battery is well marked, and there is a small parking space near its entrance. A CD information sign provides useful information about the battery and its capture by American infantry.
This fortified complex contained casemates housing 210-mm guns which easily reached Utah Beach. Despite shelling from large-caliber guns and repeated infantry assaults, the battery held out until 12 June, all the while harassing landing operations. It was the one major battery in the lodgment area that actually became a factor in the post-D Day battle.
Azeville Battery
From the Crisbecq Battery drive west, cross D 14, then, after 1 kilometer, turn south on D69. After another kilometer, veer east again on D 269 toward Azeville (2 km). The casemates (22 ), that housed four French 105-mm guns, flank the road just before you enter the village. The casemates are not open to visitors.
After withstanding attacks from the 22d Infantry for two days, the battery surrendered after a flamethrower, triggered by Private Ralph G. Riley, set off ammunition inside one of the casemates. Riley was awarded the Silver Star for his single-handed attack.
Objective WXYZ
You may now follow the CD road signs from the Crisbecq Battery to Ste.-Mre-Eglise or you may make a short detour to pass by ''Objective WXYZ,'' a group of farmhouses and outbuildings that was the scene of a memorable D Day firefight.
To reach WXYZ (23), drive south on D 14 from St.-Marcouf until you reach the D 423 intersection (6 km), then turn west for 2 kilometers to the intersection with D 115.
In 1944, the farm buildings you have just passed along D 423 had been pressed into service as a barracks complex for German artillerymen. On American maps they were simply given the designation "WXYZ." Today, there is nothing along this bucolic country road to recall for the traveler the events of 6 June. Yet here, Staff Sergeant Harrison Summers, 1st Battalion, 502d Parachute Infantry, fought almost single-handedly to capture the barracks.
Summers had been given fifteen men to accomplish his mission, one that really called for a battalion effort. Strangers to Summers and coming from different units, these men had little stomach for the firefight the sergeant was about to begin. Trusting that his example would inspire his men, Summers raced over to the first building, kicked in the door, and sprayed the room with his Thompson submachine gun. The handful of survivors burst out of the rear of the building, looking for cover further down the road. Summers, now covered by Private William Burt with a light machine gun, broke into a second house and shot its six defenders. And so it went from house to house. Two officers who joined him were taken out by German fire almost immediately. Private John Camien, carrying an M-1 carbine, pitched in later. The rest of Summers's squad provided some covering fire from the ditch paralleling the road. But it was largely Summers's fight. Building after building fell to the intrepid sergeant. The finale came after five hours of fighting, when Summers and Burt set the last barracks building on fire with bazooka rounds and tracers, flushing the eighty or so German defenders into an open field where fifty were killed. When asked how he felt, Summers, dragging on a cigarette, replied that he didn't feel "very good. It was all kind of crazy."
Ste.-Mre-Eglise
To reach Ste.-Mre-Eglise (24), turn north on D 115 to its junction with D 15 (3 km), then drive west on D 15 (3 km). Park in the town square (Place de 6 Juin).
One of the most disastrous drops (in a night filled with disasters) occurred in Ste.-Mre-Eglise. Around midnight, a stray incendiary bomb had set fire to the house of Monsieur Harion, located to the east of the square. Wakened by the mayor and the tolling of the church bell, the townspeople turned out in large numbers to form a bucket brigade supervised by members of the German garrison. (The hand pump used that night still sits on the east side of the square.) While the house continued to burn, the drone of planes could be heard over the tolling bell. The firefighters, looking skyward, saw ghostly silhouettes drifting down on them. Two sticks from the 1st and 2d battalions had gotten their green jump light directly over the village. Illuminated by light from the burning house and tracers from German AA guns, the paratroopers were easy targets for the Germans below. Few survived. One who did was Private John Steele, whose parachute caught on the steeple of the church in front of you. The wounded paratrooper hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. The less fortunate hung from the trees all around the square where they had been shot. Once the fire in Monsieur Harion's house had burned itself out and the last of the paratroopers were killed or captured, the German garrison (a transportation company) quite inexplicably called it an evening and turned in.
A mile northeast of Ste.-Mre-Eglise, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Krause, commanding the 3d Battalion, assembled ninety men within an hour of landing and promptly ordered an advance on the village. Around dawn, the German garrison was again turned out, this time by the rattle of small-arms fire. Krause's men cleared the village in a rush, capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. With Ste.-Mre-Eglise in American hands, Krause ran a worn American flag to the top of the village flagpole, a flag that he had carried with him from Sicily.
North of Ste.-Mre-Eglise, the 505th's 2d Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort, landed in its assigned drop zone and quickly assembled 575 of its 650 members. After some initial communications confusion (working radios were in short supply that morning), Vandervoort, who had broken his ankle on landing, ordered the bulk of his men to fall back on Ste.-Mre-Eglise. He left Lieutenant Turner B. Turnbull and a platoon of forty-one to hold Neuville, two kilometers to the north.
Turnbull, a half-Cherokee known as the "Chief" to his men, had hardly deployed his troopers to either side of the road when they were attacked by a company of the 1058th Grenadier Regiment, 91st Division, supported by a self-propelled gun and a tank. German fire quickly killed Turnbull's one bazooka man, but the paratroopers used their 57-mm anti-tank gun, trailered up by Vandervoort behind his command jeep, to knock out both the self-propelled gun and the tank. By afternoon, the Germans had worked around both flanks of the American position and threatened to cut N 13. Turnbull ordered a fighting retreatÑa move Vandervoort had tried to signal him earlierÑand sixteen of the original forty-two troopers reached American lines. Turnbull and his men had bought eight hours, giving Colonel William Ekman, commanding the 505th, time to consolidate his position around St.-Mre-Eglise.
In the late morning, the enemy attacked along N 13 from the south, only to be driven back and counterattacked in turn by Company L, 2d Battalion. D Day ended with the Americans still in control of Ste.-Mre-Eglise, and further German attacks during the night failed to dislodge them. For their roles in the capture and defense of Ste.-Mre-Eglise, both Krause and Vandervoort received the Distinguished Service Cross.
All through 6 June, isolated groups of paratroopers were getting their first taste of hedgerow fighting within a few miles of Ste.-Mre-Eglise. One of the more confused fights took place west of the village at La Fire bridge, where uncoordinated groups from the 505th, 507th, and 508th regiments first captured, then lost this important crossing of the Merderet.
By the afternoon of the sixth, the paratroopers had made contact with elements of the 4th Division moving inland from Utah Beach. They had cut N 13 at Ste.-Mre-Eglise, thereby preventing the Germans from reinforcing the beach area. By their reduction of strong points at the beach exits, they greatly aided in the movement of the 4th Division off Utah Beach. Much hard fighting lay ahead to clear enemy resistance in the Carentan area, and forge a linkup between the two American beachheads. But it was apparent that Eisenhower's decision to go ahead with the night drop of the two American airborne divisions had been sound.
On one side of the square is the church (built between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries) on which Private John Steele landed. It contains two stained-glass windows commemorating the drop. There is a CD monument in front of the church. Next to it is a memorial to the 1944 mayor, Alexandre Renaud. The hand pump used to fight the fire on the night of 5-6 June still stands at the rear of the square behind the church. To the south of the square stands the MusŽe des Troupes AŽroportŽes. Open daily 1 June-15 September 0900-1900. Times and dates vary for the remainder of f the year. See Appendix A. Admission charge.
The H™tel de Ville (Town Hall) is located just south of the square. In front stands a milestone marking "Kilometer O" on the "liberation route." Behind it is a stone honoring Generals Ridgway and Gavin. Inside the building is the American flag that Lieutenant Colonel Edward Krause raised over the liberated Ste.-Mre-Eglise. It had earlier flown over liberated Naples.
Before leaving Ste.-Mre-Eglise, you may wish to make a couple of short trips to nearby sites of interest.
Two kilometers east of the town on D 17 is La Londe Farm, the site of the first operational American air base in Normandy. A commemorative parachute drop is staged there each June 6, weather permitting.
Some three kilometers to the southwest on D 67, near Chef-du-Pont,
is a memorial to the 508th Parachute Infantry (25).
To visit the Fort du Roule, which is situated above the port of Cherbourg, drive north from Ste.-Mre-Eglise on N 13 some 37 km. (Two km north of Ste.-Mre-Eglise you will pass through Neuville-au-Plain where Lieutenant Turnbull fought his holding action.) As you enter Cherbourg turn right at the traffic light and follow the signs up the hill to the fort.
The Fort du Roule, a classic star fort built in the nineteenth century, sits atop a rock spur which dominates Cherbourg from the south. In 1944 the Germans had turned the fort into a formidable strong point. Coastal artillery, facing the harbor, was mounted in the lower level under the cliff edge. The upper ramparts were studded with concrete machine-gun and mortar emplacements and protected by an anti-tank ditch.
The task of reducing the fort fell to the 1st and 2d battalions of the 314th Infantry, 79th Division. Following earlier bombing attacks, their assault began in the morning of 25 June with an ineffective P-47 attack and an artillery barrage. The advance temporarily halted in a draw some seven hundred yards from the fort before resuming under covering fire. At this juncture Corporal John D. Kelly of E Company managed to take out a key pillbox with a pole charge and hand grenades, thereby allowing his platoon to penetrate the outer defenses. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Carlos C. Ogden of K Company, although twice wounded, used his rifle and hand grenades to knock out an 88-mm gun and two machine guns blocking his company's advance. Both men were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
By noon, the 314th held the upper works of the fort. The German defenders continued to fire from the lower level until the next day, when fire from the town, demolition charges, and an infantry assault along the cliff side smoked them out.
Today the fort is the site of the MusŽe de la LibŽration. Open April through September 0900-1200 and 1400-1800; open October through March 0930-1200 and 1400-1730 (closed Tuesdays). Admission charge.