WWII France

On our recent vacation, we spent 3 days visiting the WWII landing areas of France. There were several landing points along the beach. American troops landing at Utah, Omaha and Pointe du Hoc. British and Canadians landing at Sword, Juno, and Gold Beaches. I could write many, many things about these landings... but if you´re interested, you should read about it on Wikipedia. Excellent article here

I will say that the British landing area of Gold Beach is impressive. They created a series of structures to build a shallow-water port capable of bringing equipment on land. Very interesting and apparently this was a key success factor in the Allied advances in the early days of the war. Unfortunately, there was a terrible storm a couple weeks after the D-day that destroyed the equipment and made the port inoperable. In the time they had the port established, they brought many things on shore. It was a 24 hour/day operation. Amazing.

This trip was one with special significance for me. My Grandpa, Iloe Collins (my Mother´s dad who died several years ago) was a soldier in France during WWII. In the early stages of the war, he was in a logistics unit. Essentially doing mechanic work and truck driving. He entered France at Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day.

Here.








Most people say that their relatives never talk about the war. I´m thankful to say that the one time I asked him about his time there, he told me a few things. His job was to drive a fuel truck. It held diesel for the tanks and other support equipment for the troops. He said most of the days were unexciting for him... simply loading and delivering fuel to different areas that needed it. He was typically well behind the line and not involved in the fighting, for which he was thankful. The one problem for him was that his since his truck carried fuel, it was a nice target for the enemy. You can imagine that logistically speaking blowing up a fuel truck caused both a nice explosion (immediate damage) and destroyed important resources that your enemy needs to advance.

He told me a story once of a call they received about a unit that was in desperate need of fuel. They were in an area that was being contested by the enemy, so it was particularly dangerous. He was sent out to resupply them. They sent infantry soldiers with him in the truck to help protect him. He was on a small road with hedgerows on each side. As he rounded a corner, there was a clearing and a German Panzer tank sitting in a field, all alone. They saw one another at the same time and the tank began moving their gun to fire on him. He was desperately trying to move the truck back to the hedge and find protection when an airplane flew over and dropped a series of bombs all around him and the tank. The tank was destroyed and he was uninjured. I remember he told me he was shaking like a leaf and it took several minutes to regain his ability to drive. However, he continued on the task to deliver the fuel. He said that after the delivery, he parked the truck and found “enough drinks to make the shaking stop”. My Grandpa was surely not a fighting man by nature!

As we drove through the roads around Normandy... he was often (constantly) on my mind. Did he stop in this town or that one? Did he see this old church? Are friends of his buried here in this cemetery? Did the grandparents of these people serving me lunch know him? Maybe silly questions... but it struck me how many regular people, like Iloe, spent time in here to help these people improve their situation.

The American Cemetery will forever be in my mind. Over 10,000 graves there. Roughly 3400 people died on June 6th alone. As you walk along the rows... you see June 6, 7, 8, 9 over and over and over again. It´s both a beautiful and terrible place.



The museum at the Cemetery is excellent and one of the men profiled inside was a man named John Ray. He was an Army Paratrooper who jumped into France on D-Day. He and two of his peers were caught by their gear and stranded on a big church building, unable to get to the ground. As he was freeing himself, he was shot by the enemy and mortally wounded. He fell to the ground and (while dying) used his weapon to stop the attackers who were about to kill his Army buddies still up on the church. His friends lived that day. He died. I found his grave outside and took this picture. What courage.

I consider myself to be a patriotic person. This place overwhelms me with pride for how much America cares about freedom in the world. The British and Canadians couldn´t have freed Western Europe without our help. While America has not always made the right choices in our attempts to help others... sometimes we get it perfectly right.

Put this on your list of important places to see. (and ask us about the wonderful Bed and Breakfast we stayed in!)