The D-Day Memorial

Hi All,


Before I begin, I want to thank everyone who reads my blogs.  As of today I have hit 724 views.  When I began this blog, I had no idea I would ever get so many views, let alone within the short time I have been away.
With an actual day off I got up early today and headed out of town.  My usual coffee shop wasn't open until 10.00am so I missed that and stopped in for a buffet breakfast for $6.99.  I even found out you can now get sugar free maple syrup which is great for someone with insulin resistance.  Perhaps I will soon find a low GI pancake that will allow me to eat those with the sugar free syrup!!!  Tomorrow the coffee shop isn't open until 12.00 and closes at 5.00pm.  That's not so bad though, we practice at 5.00pm.  Yes 5.00pm on a Sunday.  Some friends have been encouraging me to write more, so I might see if I can belt out an idea for a book.

So back to today, I headed straight up to Bedford, Virginia where the National (some say International) D-Day Memorial is located.  Believe it or not, the memorial is privately funded but does have endorsement from the Federal Government as the National D-Day Memorial.  So the question remains, why is it located in Bedford? Well it had the highest rate, per head of capita, of loss of any town in the USA on the day of the D-Day landing, 6 June 1944.  If I remember correctly, of a town of 3000, 35 men stormed the beaches on that day and 19 were killed.  All 19 telegrams arrived at the corner store on the same day.

Rather than try to tell the story of the memorial in words, I will tell it in photos and captions below.  By the way, Bedford is also the site of Jefferson's second home, however I chose not to got here today.

After the memorial, I headed into town and had a read of my Jefferson book after some lunch at Panera Bread. French Onion soup and a ham and cheese sandwich.  It was whilst I had my coffee and read my book that I received an email from home to say my sister was driving home from my parents house, with my 2 nephews and niece in the car, and a bus ran up the back of her at about 45kmh.  All are O.K although they were taken to hospital for observation.  Lucky Dad told me they were O.K in the first sentence of the email or I might not be here any more.  Hard news to hear from such a distance.

After that I got a massage and saw the movie Source Code.  Not a bad movie, not a bad movie at all!!!!!  Futuristic in story line, but the love story was as modern as any! One day...

Then I bought some nice shorts and headed for dinner at the local Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse.  I had a full rack of ribs yum yum yum.  AND to top it off, there was a game of college softball on ESPN U.  A TV station just for college sports.  Oklahoma v Texas A&M.  The coach from Texas was actually one of the people who replied to my initial emails about coaching over here.  She felt that although her program was full, my resume would open up doors for me.  And here I am.  I mention this game because the girl from Oklahoma was throwing at 72mph.  That is an incredible speed for a 20yo girl.  At my height I threw about 75mph!

After all this though, I jumped in the car and headed home.

Please enjoy the photos.

D

In case anyone was in any doubt where I was :-)

A statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the European Theatre.

O.K so here is where it begins.  The memorial is in 3 stages.  To take this photo I am standing in front of the gazebo in which the Eisenhower statue is situated.  1)  The gazebo along with the grass and plants that you can see is to represent England.  England is representative of where the plans were made for the invasion and where American and other allied troops formed up and trained for months on end in advance of the invasion.  2)  The center of the memorial beyond the first brick wall is representative of Normandy.  There is light blue concrete representative of the ocean and is split into 5 parts representing each of the 5 beaches to be stormed by allied troops.  Then there is an aspect representing the beach landing.  3)  Beyond the beach landing is an arch representing the Arch De Triumph in Paris and the march of the allies onto free France from the Nazi's.  Arch's have been representative of victory over the ages.

This brick structure in front of me in this photo is representative of the below symbol.

This patch was worn on the left shoulder (hope I remember that correctly) of the commanders in the Allied Headquarters in England.  Eisenhower had quite a bit of say in the creation of this patch.  The black background represents the evil of the Nazi war machine.  The burning sword is a centuries old symbol of good triumphing over evil.  The rainbow stripes are representative of an Allied approach to the invasion representing the many nations involved.  Finally the blue is representative of peace. 

The plaque below the sash is the speech made by Eisenhower to the troops before they set sail for Normandy.  The tour guide had a tape recording of the speech which we were encouraged to follow by reading the plaque.  Yes it was me who bought up the fact that there is a mistake on the plaque.  On the bottom of the middle column it says 'in victory' when he actually said 'to victory'.  I was promised unlimited shopping in the gift store, but that never happened.

The famous Monty.  The most senior English Commander working along side Eisenhower.

A view back of 'England'.

A view of the 'ocean' leading to the beach of Normandy. It is difficult to see however written across the top of the arch is the word Overload.  Operation Overlord was the name given to the invasion operation.

This granite structure is a recreation of the landing craft the Americans rode to the beaches and jumped out of into oncoming Nazi gun fire.  The Air Force bombing and naval bombardment had not been as effective as was hoped as many shells landed in the water short of their targets due to the terrible weather on the day.  Many of the Nazi bunkers were built to strongly to be penetrated by the bombardment from the air.  The granite landing craft open out into water and then up onto a beach where there are statues of soldiers trying to get up the beach.  The beech that you can see is actually concrete however the concrete to make the beech is actually mixed with sand from Normandy beaches.

A better view of the beach scene.  If you look closely, to the right of the hedgehog, you will see a spray of water shooting up.  When you stand there, the shooting water sounds a bit like gun fire.  This is to represent the gun fire coming at the soldiers during their landing.

These plaques around the outside of the 'ocean scene' have, give or take, the names of every single soldier killed during the D-Day landings.  This is the only place in the world where the names of all soldiers from every country are assembled.  The American names are on the western wall whilst allied forces are on the eastern wall.  There were 12 countries in total represented in the allied force.  The names on the walls are in no particular order, but they are catalogued in the gift store if anybody wants to identify a particular soldier. 

An Australian flag amongst a British, Belgian and Canadian flag against the allied soldiers.

The Australian flag flying next to the American flag.

The statue on the left is a soldier shot on the beach.  The middle statue is an infantry man guarding and guiding a medic up the beach.  Medic's were not armed.  The statue to the right is representative of the difficulty of wading through the water under intense gun fire. 

The book next to the head of the dead soldier is the Holy Bible.  A rather gruesome statue.

A close up of the soldier and the medic.

The tour guide showed us an actual photo of the 104 ft cliff these Rangers had to climb up to get up their beach.  I cannot remember the numbers on how many made it, but many did not.

Any actual spotter plane used for the bombardment on the day.  The white black white black white stripes are representative of the D-Day mission.

This is an Australian medal given to the either mother or widow of a soldier killed in action.  They described it as the Australian equivalent of an American Purple Heart.  A Purple Heart however is given posthumerously to the soldier.  The guide loved our idea.

This is the scene beyond the arch.  One soldier is carrying another who has been wounded. It is difficult to see but the white rocks represent the white beaches and although we not int he right season, you can see red roses blooming.  When the red roses bloom they are representative of the blood red colour of the ocean on that day.  Red due to the amount of blood lost into the ocean by the soldiers shot attempting to land on the beach.  The guide said actual survivors of the day said it is in fact the case that the water was blood red.

An opposite view of the statue of the soldiers climbing the cliff.  The first soldier is coming over the crest of the cliff.  In the background you can see the gazebo.  The statue in the foreground is underneath the arch and is representative of how a soldier was buried on the battlefield.  Bayonette stuck int he ground with the helmet on top.  Unseen is the dog tag draped around the butt of the rifle. 

The brand new Aussie flag flying proudly.

An exact replica of statue found in France.  The significance is that it was a statue representing victory from WWI.  But somewhere int he fighting she had her lower jaw blown off yet the statue remained.  She represents that no matter the fighting, peace and liberty will prevail. 

A view from under the arch down onto the 'beach'.

We were invited that if we wanted to, we could take a flag of our country and place it in the garden of remembrance.  It  did not matter which war our remembered one fought in.  I wrote along the stem of the flag "Albert Victor Shepherd: 28 Battalion; 2nd AIF"

Grandads flag in the garden of remembrance.

Me with Grandad's flag.