Normandy

Headed to the cost to visit the D-Day beaches of Normandy

Shane:
When we left Paris, we went to Normandy. There were beaches there. It was not very sunny and we couldn’t go swimming, but we walked on the beach, ran around and played by the water.

We went searching for pearls in oysters. We didn’t find any live oysters or clams on the beach, but we did find lots of mussel, oyster and clam shells. The tide went up really quickly. I was standing on a rock and I almost fell in to the sea from very high up. The tide came in so fast Sullivan almost got stuck out there.

We went to Normandy because that’s where Operation Overlord happened. Operation Overlord was the mission to get behind the big wall the Nazis built out of thick barb wire, cement anti-tank obstacles and there were mines too. The soldiers from America, England and Canada came in from the water and attacked. This was on June 6, 1944. It was called D-Day. They say that this is the reason the Nazis didn’t take over Europe and how the war ended.

There were 5 beaches in Operation Overlord: Sword, Gold, Omaha, Utah and the one we stayed at – Juno Beach. Juno Beach was the Canadian Mission and there were many Canadian flags around. We went to visit Juno, Omaha and Utah. We went to the Utah Beach Museum. We learned a lot about Operation Overlord like that they had little bags with supplies and put colour beacons on them so that they would know what it is. Red was for ammunition. The soldiers used “crickets” little metal pieces you can make pop between your fingers. One pop was to say hi. Two pops were to say hi back. If there weren’t any pops back that meant that it was not an allied solider.

We went to the American Military Cemetery in Normandy. A lot of soldiers are buried there – over 9000 young men and women. We saw them take the flags down and play the song Taps on a bugle. It was very very dark. It’s right by Omaha Beach. You can actually see the beach.

We watched the movie Saving Private Ryan. It was the story of what happened at Omaha Beach. It helped me picture what happened there even though now it’s just a pretty beach that people like to come to in the summer. In the summer it’s really really packed.

Sullivan:
We were on a beach and and also that was the beach that soldiers fought for our lives. We saw a lot of monuments. We did a lot of driving. The houses are very plain, not that interesting, but what happened to them was. Their colour is all beige and they’re made of stone. Very very old. There are not big buildings. There are no sky scrapers. The streets are small and winding. They were barely big enough for our car.

It has a great history. We learned a lot about war history. My favourite part of history is that we got to go see the beach and learn about how the war ended.