we were scheduled to head out on the rest of our D-Day tour between 9 and 9:30am, so we got up around 8:00 (again with it still dark outside) to shower and get dressed. we had a nice breakfast of various types of bread and jam, a cup of tea, and then we were off. our first stop was Pointe-du-Hoc, a German emplacement atop 150 foot rock cliffs overlooking the ocean. this spot is special for me because Colonel James Earl Rudder of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was the one who led his men up the cliffs. Rudder would later become President of Texas A&M University, my alma mater, and would hold a special place in the hearts of all Aggies, especially if they had had the wonderful privelege of meeting Rudder’s widow, Margaret, before she died.

it was VERY cold up on those cliffs. even as bundled up as we were, we were still freezing. i think Tony said it was about -12 celsius up there (with it being about -4 or so down where they lived) and i did not doubt it. the Pointe is very well preserved with most of the shelled earth still the way it was 60 years ago after the naval bombardment of the area. the craters were amazing! it was hard to imagine one shell making such a hole and you had to wonder where all the earth that was in the hole went! the ground was covered with enormous potholes, but the cement bunkers still stood, seemingly unscathed by the intense shelling they underwent. the concrete was as thick as 17 feet at some places, providing a wealth of protection for the guns and troops contained within them. the Pointe-du-Hoc memorial was barbed off because the cliff it has been on for years has been eroding pretty badly and they don’t want people slipping off the cliffs onto the rocks below (which was sad because i had wanted to get a picture of my Aggie Ring sitting on the plaque dedicated to Colonel Rudder).

after looking over the cliffs onto the ocean and thinking of Colonel Rudder’s famous words (when he returned to the Pointe in 1954 he looked at a journalist standing next to him and said, “Will you tell me how we did this?”) in a completely new context, we made our way over to a couple of the six gun emplacements that the Rangers were charged with taking the morning of June 6. strangely enough, the guns had been moved farther inland without the Allies knowing this. so, essentially, the Rangers scaled the cliffs, losing many great men in the process, for nothing. however, it was still a courageous and remarkable feat. after seeing the gun emplacements, we went over to a couple of the German bunkers that are still there and i went down inside one of them while Tony and Sarah remained top-side. there was a hall and two quarters rooms. the rooms were a good size, probably about 15′x15′, and i could imagine the way it must have looked and the chaos that must have ensued the morning of the invasion when the warships in the Channel began pummeling the Pointe. after going back up to ground level, we walked along more craters (i tried to go down inside a couple of them, but they were too deep, steep, and slippery because of the ice and snow and i wasn’t sure i’d be able to get back out if i got down inside one) and then headed to our next destination.

we were now headed for Utah Beach. the place i wanted to see more than any other thing on this trip. my grandfather, William “Bill” Cozart, came in with the second wave of invaders on this very beach so many years ago. unlike Omaha (which we couldn’t get to because the roads were too slick and the car would not have made it back up the causeways if we had safely gotten down), we actually got to walk around on this beach. Utah, like Omaha, is about a 4 mile stretch of beach, but it was not as well defended by the Germans because of the topography. it did not have a shingle wall or bluffs looking over it. the only natural defense from the beach was about a 4-6 foot seawall that is covered in brush. the German pillboxes that were built to defend this beach were a lot closer to where the invaders would have landed than at Omaha, but there were not as many of them, nor were the German troops the best that the Nazis had to offer. the landings at Utah were much more successful than Omaha, with only (and i don’t use that word lightly) about 300 casualties, compared with over 2,000 at “Bloody Omaha.” it was amazing to be down on that beach, walking in the same sand that my grandfather ran for his life through, and imagining what it must have been like to be either an American soldier storming the beach, or a German soldier looking out at the forces coming right for them while dealing with the intense shelling from the ships in the channel and bombers overhead. adding to the atmosphere on the beach were small bursts of gunfire. it’s hunting season in Normandy (there’s not periods of time where you can hunt specific animals like in the States, there’s a month-long period where everything is fair game) and there were hunters out shooting rabbits, foxes, and various birds. while this may have seemed strange, it was actually quite fitting and i tried to imagine the gun shots to the millionth power to even begin to get an idea of what the invasion must have been like. after taking the beach in for a few more minutes i found a rock as a memento of being there, slipped it in my pocket and we left the beach behind.

after driving around the area a bit more and seeing some sites of famous battles, our next stop was St. Mere-Eglise, a small town that was the site of paratroop drops and made famous in the film The Longest Day, which showed John Steele getting stuck on top of the church in the town when his parachute hooked on to the steeple. there is still a memorial to John Steele in the town as a dummy hangs from the church by its parachute and a bar down the street bears his name. this town was key in the linking up of the 4th Division which had landed at Utah and elements of the 82nd Airborne that had parachuted in on the night of June 5th. we had lunch at a small diner that served as the “headquarters” of one of the majors that had dropped in. since neither Sarah nor i spoke French, Tony ordered for us. the three of us had sandwiches called Croque Madame. sarah and i loved it. it’s basically a ham and cheese sandwich except they use some fancy French cheese and melt it over the top of the sandwich instead of the cheese being between the bread. it was great.

after our visit to St. Mere-Eglise, it was getting late in the day, so we started making our way back to the house. we went through Carentan, the site of another key battle and vitally important for the Allies to have captured if they were going to move in to and liberate Paris. sad to be leaving Normandy, we made it back to the house for more tea and to get ready to head to Paris. we recounted our day with Pat and the friends they had staying with them and had fun watching them trying to figure out the DVD player that they had just installed. after packing, Tony took sarah and i to the train station in Bayeux where we had about an hour and a half until our train was to head to Paris. the time went by really slow and there was this strange man that just appeared to be….hanging out at the train station (he would also have like these little outbursts where he would yell a word or two in French), so that was a little strange. our train soon arrived and we were headed to Paris.

when we got to Paris, we caught a taxi and went to check in to our hotel room. the hotel had gotten rave reviews on one of the hotel ratings websites and it definitely lived up to those reviews. the staff is incredibly nice and informative, and the room, though a bit small, was quite cozy and pleasant. we set our bags down and got ready for bed, planned out our first day in Paris and went to sleep.