WWII Trip - 11/10, Tour of Normandy

Getting to our "Cozy Cottage" in Lison, France, was a real adventure but now that we are here, we are loving it.  We drove all day Saturday, 11/9, from Bruges, Belgium, to our rental in France.  It rained most of the way, but the roads were fine and the drivers courteous.  I took some interesting shots from the car on my iPhone but for some reason they haven't downloaded into the Cloud so I cannot post them.

We had a lot of problems finding the cottage because the village is so small it is on few maps and our  GPS had no record of the street we needed to find.  We finally cheated and used another street in Lison and that at least got us near to our destination.  We did stop and knock on a couple's door - scaring them half to death.  Trust me, people are just not out at night in the very rural part of Normandy.  They did not speak a word of English and we were as pathetic in French, but with much pointing and the gentleman joining us in the road in the rain, he pointed us in the right direction.
He got a lovely bottle of 2006 Marguax for his efforts.  We had managed to find a store with a lovely wine selection.

When we got to the cottage we entered the code into the lockbox only to find it empty - no key.  The property manager would not answer his phone, so we turned around and checked into a hotel in Bayeux, the nearest town.

The next morning we met the property manager and moved into the cottage.  Just as we were unloading our luggage, etc. our tour guide showed up.  George had hired Ed Robinson to spend the day with us.  He is a noted WWII tour guide and a very interesting guy.  He is from Ireland, has traveled all over the world, speaks numerous languages, and loves military history.  His only formal training was in ballistic forensics (we guessed he had been in the military at some point).  We were expecting some old coot in his 60's at least.  We were surprised at how young he is.

Ed Robinson

Our first stop on the tour was St. Mar de l'Elgise where the 82nd Air Borne dropped right in the middle of town and the 70 Germans stationed there.  In the movie The Longest Day Red Buttons plays the trooper whose parachute got caught on one of the church spires.  The town realized the movie had turned their little village into a tourist "must see" so they have done a few things to "enhance" the experience.

A dummy hangs off the church.

Well, according to Ed, the real story is the paratrooper, John Steele, ended up hanging in the back of the church about 3 feet off the ground and did not remember the bells ringing while he was there.  He had been shot in the foot and he did play dead.  While hanging there two German soldiers found him and went through all of his pockets and pouches and took everything except his weapons.  As the Germans walked away, John pulled his pistol and ordered them to stop.  He then turned himself in and they took him to the local hospital.  He later escaped and was shipped to England for further treatment.  He was returned to active duty to participate in later battles in late 1944.

He was made an honorary citizen of St. Mar de l'Eglise and there is a pub named after him.

After the war the residents wanted to cover up and forget the battles that had been fought there so they plastered over all evidence of the fighting.  Later they realized tourists would want to see bullet holes from the fighting, so they removed the plaster and now you can see pockmarks.

One of the chimneys that was restored, showing  bullet holes.

Not all remaining evidence was ever covered up.

Here is a rot-iron fence post showing where a bullet from a paratrooper, who was shooting at a German in the back yard of the home next to the church, struck while he was floating down over the town.















Before leaving we rushed into the church to take some shots before a baptism began.

The main alter

St. Michael, patron saint of soldiers, shown with the military patches of those units in the invasion.

Madonna of the Paratroopers

The tour continued down to the beaches but few photos were taken because we plan to return for a full day of shooting.

Here are a couple of the shots I did take:

Cool bomber pilot jacket in the museum at l'Eglise

George taking a shot of a memorial but, oh my, look at that sky!