France 2025 - Day 4

 Day four we were off to Utah Beach, and a new town for the night. Utah is the real point of the trip. It's where my grandad landed on D+3. He said he walked off the landing craft onto the beach and didn't even get his feet wet.

Walking up to the museum, cafe and beach entrance.

Utah beach has a very good museum so we started with that. 

The beach marker.

A bunker incorporated into the cafe.

The entrance to the beach is behind the landing craft.

There are Shermans everywhere in Normandy.

Great artifacts here.

Hitler's buzzsaw.

An amtrack. Designed for the Marines but used everywhere.

This is the first model. It didn't have a ramp so you had to jump over the side to get out.

This bomber is really nicely restored. Part of the reason Utah was a relative cakewalk was that several hundred of these made a run down the beach and bombed the German defenses into a state of shock.

A Higgins boat. Made of plywood they were cheap and easy to produce. Also purchased by the Marines for the Pacific but used everywhere.

Top view.

The length of the troop compartment.

From the bow looking aft.

U. S. weapons.

A very nice, large, diorama of what the beach might have looked like after the U.S. Army came ashore. 

Tank traps outside the window of the museum.

A DUKW amphibious truck.

They had models of the troops moving inland set under the floor. The game in me wanted to take this bit home.

A monument to the navy and clearance divers.

Looking down on Utah beach from the tops of the dunes.

Looking down the beach. 

Dad and Owyn standing on Utah Beach.

The statue of troops landing as we left the beach. The tractor on the right was brining in more sand.

After the museum we stopped in the cafe for a drink which turned into lunch.

This was a nice little cafe with good food. We beat the rush and had a very nice lunch.

Following Utah beach we went to St. Mere Eglise, famous for the 101st Airborne landing in The Longest Day. There is a very good airborne museum here, and the village has put a mannequin of a paratrooper who got caught on the church steeple, up on the church steeple.

The museum in the foreground and the church in the back.

Another Sherman.

A German 88

Owyn the car nerd loved the truck.

Owyn as a paratrooper.

One of the fake paratroopers dropped in various places to throw the Germans into confusion.

U.S. 57mm anti-tank gun

An early war French tank, captured when France surrendered. Many, many of these tanks were used by Germans in rear areas.

German paratroopers, who were the main opponents of the U.S. paras in this area. Great displays here as well. 

A French frog in a pond between buildings.

M8 Scout Car

This diorama is of one of the gliders. It may be the only fully restored one anywhere. It's a very cool exhibit.

75mm Pack Howitzer. It could be broken up into pieces and carried on three mules.

A U.S. 90mm anti-aircraft gun. This is what my Grandad crewed before an unfortunate incident with a dumb lieutenant and a naval destroyer. He then became an infantryman.

Following the museum Owyn and I went into the church while Dad rested in the grounds outside.

This is a replacement window, dedicated to St Michael (I think) the patron saint of paratroops, and to the airborne units who landed in Normandy on D-Day.

We had one more stop planned. There is a tourist trap at Dead Man's Corner called the Normandy Experience. We paid the the museum and the ride in the C-47 but not for the movies.

M5 Stuart. The spot got its name because an M5 was destroyed here and sat for several days with the dead tank commander hanging out of his turret.

The entrance to the museum. This building served as HQ for both the German paratrooper defenders and the American paratrooper attackers at various times during the battle.

A German Flammenwerfer 35. It Werfs Flammen.

All of us sitting inside the fuselage of a C-47. It's hooked up to hydraulics and simulates the flight across the channel and a crash landing in Normandy. 

A mock up of what a jeep would look like inside the same sort of glider as at the Airborne museum.

From this side they just look like a bunch of soldiers waiting around. From the other side you can see they are in a landing craft.

This is all inside the museum.

An early war French light transport. Captured by Germans then by Americans.

Hey! Look! A Sherman!

This place was also, oddly, a giant surplus store. Owyn and Dad each bought one of Grandad's division patches. Once done here we headed to our hotel for the night and then over to a seafood restaurant right on the harbor.

We had some delicious oysters.

Dad got the seafood platter. It had a little bit of everything.

A white fish on risotto. Very good.

A quick walk back to our hotel and were were done for the day.