A visit to the Normandy beaches where the Allied forces landed on D-Day held a special resonance for PETER CUNNINGHAM. His father was there in 1944, 65 years ago today
AT JUST AFTER 7am on June 6th, 1944, 27-year- old British army captain Redmond Cunningham ordered his modified Sherman tank to be driven from a flat-bottomed landing craft on to Sword Beach, Ouistreham, north of Caen, Normandy. The air was thick with smoke from the Allied naval bombardment. When his tank was hit by German fire, Capt Cunningham abandoned it, commandeered another, then under sustained mortar fire cleared mines to make a path through the sand dunes. He then brought up the remnants of his squadron from the shoreline, disabled a number of German guns and took more than 90 German prisoners. For his actions he was awarded the Military Cross, the only Irishman to have won this distinction on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. Although he often returned to France, he never revisited Sword Beach. He died on December 1st, 1999.
Redmond Cunningham was my father and today he will be among the tens of thousands remembered when US President Barack Obama visits Normandy. The weather there at this time of year is a mixture of long sunny spells and short, often violent gales and heavy showers. Behind the beaches that stretch west from the port town of Ouistreham, north of Caen, white cattle graze in drowsy meadows, apple orchards are in blossom and the drone of bees is occasionally interrupted by the wing-flap of a pigeon. Further west, near Colleville-sur-Mer, the somewhat flat topography gives way to high cliffs. And if you look more closely, here and there you will see sand dune and cliff top broken by the squat outline of concrete gun emplacements.
Sixty-five years ago, the weather in Normandy was no different. In the early hours of June 5th, 1944, general Dwight D Eisenhower, supreme Allied commander, took a call from the army’s chief meteorologist telling him that a 24- to 36-hour window of fair weather could be relied upon in the English Channel. Over the next 24 hours, the greatest force of planes, gliders, warships, armour and men ever assembled left ports and airfields across the south of England and set out for the stretch of French coast between Ouistreham and Quinéville, a target area about 70km in length. Shortly after dawn on June 6th, 1944, the Battle of Normandy began.
Six and a half decades have gone by since D-Day and in the intervening period, during which Europe has been liberated, enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity, been redesigned and united, the evidence of war has mostly sunk into the Normandy landscape, with one exception – more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing here during intense fighting in the summer of 1944 and the remains of many of them are interred in a number of beautiful and inspiring cemeteries.
The best known of these is the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer where the headstones of nearly 10,000 men all face west for home, in a resting place set among pine trees on a wide plain of manicured lawn above the sea. Eight sets of brothers are interred here, including the Niland brothers, Robert and Preston, from New York, whose deaths inspired the film Saving Private Ryan. A bell tolls to mark the hour. The inscription on one headstone reads: “Here rests in honoured glory/A comrade in arms/Known but to God.”
The city of Caen, pulverised by the Allies during the Battle of Normandy (20,000 French civilians were killed), has been rebuilt since 1945. A spur of the canal that links Caen to the sea at Ouistreham has been redeveloped as a marina in the centre of town and is a focal point for tourists. In the centre of Caen, the brooding Norman castle of William the Conqueror is perfectly preserved.
Between Caen and Ouistreham, a couple of miles short of the sea, a replica of the famous Pegasus Bridge crosses the canal. A crucial transport artery for whoever held it on D-Day, Pegasus Bridge was taken from the Germans in the early hours of June 6th, 1944, by 180 paratroopers of the 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry.
Café Gondrée on the east side of the bridge was the first building in Europe to be liberated. Arlette Gondrée, who was three years old on D-Day, today runs the family café. Wiry and determined, Gondrée is besieged by the world’s press and visiting dignitaries in June every year, not to mention countless busloads of tourists.
As a tour guide passes on best wishes from a British army general, Gondrée mentions that Mohamed Al Fayed, the proprietor of Harrods, is expected by helicopter that afternoon. Is business good? “The euro is too strong, it is catastrophic,” Gondrée says.
A few minutes up the road, in the pretty village of Ranville, lies the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery. The shell marks and bullet holes in the church walls have been left un-repaired. In contrast to the American lawns in Colleville, the theme in Ranville cemetery is that of an English garden: rose and rosemary, marigolds, thyme.
“I feel so proud being here,” says Patricia Wells from Clontarf. She has come for the first time to the grave of her father, Captain AH Wells, a doctor who graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and was killed in Normandy on July 19th, 1944. Wells’s grandfather, who worked for the Bank of Ireland in College Green, Dublin chose the inscription for his son’s headstone: “So walked he . . . in simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth.”
Normandy, the land of cider and veal, of calvados and cream, is renowned for its wealth. The extraordinary resources of the Norman kings can be seen in the cathedral in Bayeux, west of Caen, consecrated in 1077, where mass has been celebrated for almost a millennium. In the church square of pretty Sainte-Merè-Église, a life-size model of a paratrooper is suspended from the church belfry, in memory of private John Steele of the US 82nd Airborne.
In the pre-dawn of D-Day, Steele’s parachute became entangled in the church spire; he feigned death for more than three hours as the battle raged below him, and was then brought down safely when the Americans took the town. This charming little place was almost obliterated in the battle to liberate it: contemporary photographs in the excellent town museum show a local population all but extinguished by war. Today, June 6th, 2009, the centre of the town is closed off to tourist buses. A giant convention of bikers is expected and Sainte-Merè-Église will be invaded by hundreds of Harley-Davidsons.
Omaha beach, situated beneath the cliffs that run between Vierville-sur-Mer to just north of Colleville-sur-Mer, is a sunny, pleasant spot. Here, the invasion of Europe nearly failed. Embedded in the high cliffs, the German guns turned the beach into a killing field. An estimated 2,300 American troops died on “Bloody Omaha”; and yet, despite the appalling loss of life, a breakthrough was made by late afternoon and a beachhead established.
While the definitive museum/interpretive centre dedicated to the Battle of Normandy is Le Mémorial, located on the Périphérique Nord, Caen, most of the little towns along the coast of the D-Day beaches have their own museums. Arromanches, with its merry-go-rounds and promenade, is the site of one of the war’s great engineering achievements: the Mulberry Harbour. Some 115 blocks of concrete, each weighing almost 7,000 tonnes, were constructed in England, towed across the Channel and sunk in place here to make the harbour’s walls on June 9th, 1944. They are still clearly visible.
The seafront museum is dedicated to the story of how Arromanches was transformed almost overnight from a sleepy village into a frantic makeshift port through which, in the hundred days following D-Day, 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and four million tonnes of supplies were landed.
Most expositions of D-Day concentrate on the heroism, audacity and ingenuity of the Allied invasion. A different, more sombre note is struck at Friedenspark, La Cambe, a German military cemetery where 20,000 men are buried. With its great oaks and open spaces, Friedenspark is echoingly sad. The modest but thoughtful museum displays some of the last letters home from German soldiers beside their photographs. Many letters, written under fire, express the belief that the invasion is being repulsed and that the battle will soon be over. No headstones here for the failed and fallen, just copper-coloured tablets laid out in pairs on the earth. Some simply say, “Ein Deutscher Soldat”.
Juno Beach, Utah and Omaha, Pointe de l’Hoc and Longues-sur-Mer all tell their stories about the battles that decided the future of Europe on this day, 65 years ago. Those troops could surely never have imagined, as they fought their way ashore, how decades later coach tours would visit their battlefields, or that their gallantry would be on display in museums. But they would not have been human if they had not dared to dream of an end to war and of a Europe free of tyranny.
Peter Cunningham travelled to Normandy as a guest of Group Travel International. GTI offers second World War D-Day tours, including three nights accommodation, for €697 per person sharing. 01-8085206, www.gti-ireland.com, or e-mail irishtimes@gti-ireland.com
Where to stay, eat and go
Where to stay
- Mercure Port de Plaisance. 1 rue Courtonne, Caen, 00-33-23-1472424, www.accorhotels.com. This is a basic hotel on the marina with a friendly welcome.
- Le Dauphin. 29 rue Gémare, Caen, 00-33-23-1862226, www.le-dauphin-normandie.com. Le Dauphin is in the centre of town in what used to be an old priory. Some bedrooms have ancient beams and period furniture.
- Le Lion d’Or. 71 rue St Jean, Bayeux, 00-33-23-1920690, www.liondor-bayeux.fr. This old post house, dating back to 18th century, has an attractive paved courtyard and comfortable rooms.
Where to eat
- L’Insolite. 16 rue de Vaugueux, Caen. 00-33-23-1438387, www.restaurant-linsolite.com. Good fish and snails served by a flamboyant owner.
- Hotel de Paris. Place du 6 Juin, Courseulles-sur-Mer. 00-33-23-1374507, www.hoteldeparis-normandy.com. Steak and chips and chocolate mousse for €11.
- Restaurant le Roosevelt. Utah Beach, Sainte-Marie- du-Mont. 00-33-23-3715347, www.le-roosevelt.com. Chicken and chips served to a background of Glenn Miller in the authentic invasion cafe. Brasserie Restaurant du 6 Juin. Arromanches, 00-33-231223484. Basic fare, one block back from the beach.
- Brasserie de l’Europe. 2 rue St Malo, Bayeux, 00-33-23-1920969. Flan of crab, escalope of veal and crème caramel served alongside this busy shopping street near the cathedral.
Where to go
- Le Mémorial, Caen. 00-33-23-1060645. www.memorial-caen.com. Open in summer from 9am to 7pm. Tariff: €16.50; family groups of four €48.40.
- Musée du Debarquement. Arromanches, 00-33-23-1223431, www. normandy1944.com. Tariff: adults €6.50; children €4.50.
- Mémorial Pegasus. Ranville-Benouville, 00-33-23-1781944. www.memorial-pegasus.org.Open summer from 9.30am to 6.30pm. Tariff: €6.
- Museé Airborne. Sainte-Mère-Eglise, 00-33-23-3414135. www.musee-airborne.com. Tariff: €6.50; children €3.50.
- Centre Juno Beach. Courseulles-sur-Mer, 00-33-23-1373217. www.junobeach.org. Tariff: €6.50, children €5.
- Chateau de Caen. www.château.caen.fr. Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Colleville-sur-Mer, 00-33-23-1516200, www.abmc.gov.
- British and Commonwealth War Cemetery. Ranville, www.cwgc.org.
- Friedenspark. German Military Cemetery, La Cambe. www.volksbund.de.
Go there
Fly to Paris from Dublin or Cork with Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus.com), Air France (www.airfrance.com) or Ryanair (www.ryanair. com) and hire a car. The drive time from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Caen is about three hours. Alternatively, travel with Irish Ferries (www.irish ferries.com) overnight from Rosslare to Cherbourg. Drive time from Cherbourg to Caen is around one hour.