June 28, 1944
My darling,
Every day that passes I miss you more. I realize more and more how much you mean to me and how very much I love you….
As I write this letter, I am seated on the ground in front of my pup tent and I am writing on a wooden box which serves as a desk. We have had considerable rain recently and almost everything I possess is wet including this stationery…. Last night I had an unfortunate experience. I was biting on some of the chocolate in our rations when all of a sudden one of my front teeth snapped in half and fell out of my mouth. Now there is quite a gap in my mouth and I can hear a slight lisp. I hope you will still love me when I come home nevertheless. There are no facilities here to do anything about it as I will have to go around this way for some time. The tooth is one of the two devitalized teeth in the front of my mouth and it was cracked across the middle when it was first hit. When I get back to civilization again I can either have the tooth built up or it might be better to have them both pulled and have a bridge put in.
Don’t worry about me. I am sleeping next to a deep hole and there is nothing to worry about.
I love, worship and adore you,
Bill
_____________________________________________________________________
30 Juin 1944
En France
Ma chere Sminx,
* * * *
Encore pas de lettres de tu depuis 23 Mai. Que fais tu? Est ce que tu as [illegible]! Comment va Billy? Est ce que tu dem... dans notre maison a Hancock Point? Je voudrais avoir une response a ces questions mais je sais qu'il est impossible. Comme disent les Francais, "C'est la guerre."
HIer, nous nous avons promène quinze kilometres dans deux heures. C'etait assez difficile comme tu peux croire. Apres le promenade j'ai pris un bain dans l'air fraiche. C'etait un grand plaisir at après le bain je m'ai habille dans les vêtements propres. Maintenant je suis un homme nouveau.
Avec tout mon amour,
Ton mari,
Bill
Breakfast, Bayeux Tapestry, Arromanche, German artillery bunkers, American cemetery, and mystery solved
We'll leave Dad with his broken tooth, his lisp and his French love letter, and return to Le Cheval Blanc in Honfleur where Sugar and I are eating breakfast before our departure - we renewed our discussion with a couple from Texas who are headed to Bordeaux to see friends of theirs for 30 or more years. The friend's parents lived during the German Occupation and the man from Texas was telling us how the parents had an unceasing hatred of the Germans ever since the Liberation. In fact, he said that he asked the parents that if they won a free fully paid vacation to Germany, would they take it and they said, "Absolutely not." Then this couple seated beside the window in the small breakfast room stopped speaking in a foreign tongue and started speaking English, informing us that they were Dutch and were small children during the Occupation. They were not freed until May 5-6 in 1945, after Hitler's death and right before the surrender. The Dutch woman spoke of the very severe winter of 1944-45 when many Dutch were starving - they even froze blood and then would slice it up and eat it for protein. And all the tulip bulbs? The Dutch got so hungry they ate the bulbs. She also told us of a village in Holland where, as the Allied troops approached, all the people in the village were herded by the German soldiers into a wooden church, the doors locked, and then the church and the entire village were set aflame. Everyone was killed, men women and children. Today, she said, you can visit this village and see it in the same condition it was in the day after the fire. It has never been restored. She also told us of a time she had made plans to visit that village and she could not, even now, tell her German lady friend that is where she would be visiting. And the Dutch man told us of how he survived that winter of 1944-45 because he lived in Zeeland, on an island just off the coast, in an agricultural community. They had no scarcity of food like they did in Rotterdam. What he most wanted to tell us was his joy when he ate his first chocolate at the age of 10 years in 1945 - it had been thrown out of an Allied plane either en route to or back from a mission against Germany. He can still remember the taste- it was "so good."
We hiked to the free parking lot about 1/2 mile from the hotel (to save 12 euros) and struck out with our GPS programmed for the site of the Bayeux Tapestry in Bayeux. As we drove through the countryside on this cloudy day, listening to the "Nostalgi" station, we heard "Eye of the Tiger," a fitting song to get us pumped up for the wars and battles we were going to immerse ourselves in today. The tapestry was no disappointment - in fact it is amazing. In essence, it shows in 70+ meters of tapestry the story behind the Battle of Hastings and the seizure of the English throne by William the Conqueror. Of course, the victors write the history or, in this case, embroidered the tapestry. The story starts with Edward, the elderly King of England, summoning Harold to request that he go to Bayeux and inform Edward's cousin, Wiliam, Duke of Normandy (and less kindly called William the Bastard), that he (William) was Edward's choice to succeed him. After several meters of preliminaries on the tapestry, William knights Harold and then gets him to make an oath that he will be forever faithful to William. Harold then returns to England, finds that Edward is already dead and so claims the throne for himself. William learns of Harold's treachery and mounts an invasion force which crosses the English Channel and,with his cavalry and lethal archers, defeats and kills Harold in the Battle of Hastings. The moral of the story is "keep your oath." If you ever get to this area, this is a must.
We drove the few miles from Bayeux in a rain shower, and found our lodging in Arromanche for the next two nights - an entire apartment on the second floor. After a quick late lunch and visit to the Tourist Information Center, we were instructed to go across the square and learn of the making of Port Winston, through which almost all personnel and equipment and supplies would pass after the making of this artificial port. This is the Gold Beach which, at high tide, is no beach at all, just the waves lapping up against the seawall. The rationale behind the port was to ensure the resupplying of the invasion forces for without that, the invasion would fail. The Allies could either take an existing port, or build their own. Hitler knew that if he controlled the ports, he would control the coast, and accordingly, the ports were heavily fortified and if one became precarious and might fall into Allied hands, the German order was to destroy the port, its docks and anything else that might help the Allies should they capture the port. The construction started immediately after the beachhead was secured. In 12 days, they sank 15 old navy and merchant marine vessels as a breakwater, and then sank to the shallow bottom concrete structures that would also serve as a breakwater, and then built a wharf over which the men, machinery, supplies and equipment would pass to dry land. It looked like it was almost 1000 yards long, and was built on numerous anchored floats. It was almost complete when, on June 19,1944, a severe gale hit the coast and lasted three days, destroying a similar artificial port at Omaha Beach and damaging the port here at Arromanche, but even during the storm, the wharf was still being used and ships were seeking shelter behind the huge breakwater. So by June 22, 1944, after a few repairs, the floodgates were opened and men and materiel poured through Arromanche.
Following the tourist director's instructions, we drove west to the German bunkers high above the beaches where the German artillery could shoot its shells about 13 miles with some degree of accuracy. These were a must to take out, but it was extremely difficult due to camouflaging and heavy fortifications.
Running out of time we drove on to the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach and arrived about 4:30. We saw a 16-minute film in the visitor center and then walked to the cemetery high on a bluff above Omaha Beach. An engraving in the exit of the visitor center quotes General Omar Bradley: "The battle belonged that morning to the thin, wet line of khaki that dragged itself ashore on the Channel coast of France." The tide had gone out since lunchtime, and you could see the broad expanse of beach the soldiers had to navigate under heavy enemy fire just to make it to the dunes and perhaps survive the day. Many did not survive, and many of those brave souls are buried in this immaculately maintained cemetery. I believe they said there are over 10,000 graves here, all marked with a white cross or a Star of David. As you exit the Center, names of those who were killed are being read over the PA system. We wandered through the crosses, and it was very quiet as others quietly walked between the crosses, not looking for anything in particular perhaps but sharing their appreciation for what these men had done for us. In the movie, one of the survivors had said that he was not a hero, "the heroes are buried in the cemetery."
At 5:30 three shots rang out, followed by the playing of Taps and the lowering of the American flag. Just close your eyes, and listen, knowing where you are and feeling the meaning of those few notes. It was powerful. We then visited the small chapel where we were encouraged to "think not only upon their passing, remember the glory of their spirit."
Throughout these visits, a thought kept nagging me. If Dad had written his last letter from England on June 18, 1944, and a three day gale took out the port on Omaha Beach, and his first letter in France was on June 25, then it is more likely than not that Dad disembarked at Arromanche, right on the beach I could not see at lunchtime because it was high tide. We drove back, had dinner and then I rushed back to the Arromanche beach. And there it was! The breakwater concrete structures showed clearly about 1 mile offshore, 10-15 parts of the wharf structure were still there, pretty much in a straight line leading up to the ramp leading into the town and thence to resupply Allied forces throughout Normandy. The beach was now 300-400 yards or more from the seawall to the water at low tide. Yes, this is where Dad disembarked. This is the beach he got the men to play softball on. If there is a heaven, I know he is happy that I had found this spot. And what, oh what, had made me make a reservation for a room in Arromanche when I wanted to visit Omaha Beach, 25 miles away, where I thought he had disembarked? Why hadn't I made reservations over there?
I smiled as I walked all around the beach as the sun was setting in the west. I had found our father.
Love, Nat
PS The Wifi is very weak here so I don't think I can upload photos to this blog. I will try later on.
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