2004!

Colonel Oliver Warman, Ret.

 Col. Warman majored in modern history and war studies at Oxford, lectured at the Royal Military Staff College, and served as military assistant to the British Prime Minister, in addition to serving tours of duty in three wars.

Colonel Warman explains German defensive positions to Lake

Lake standing on "shingle"

"Shingle close up

First British bullet marks at Gold Beach, Arromanches

Ominous meadow

Ominous bunkers

Gun barrel rifling

Gun mount from rear entrance

Ruins and newly planted flowers

The colonel shows lake the difference between bomb craters and naval shell craters

The wall where Germans shot and killed eighty Canadian prisoners of war. Canadians rarely took German prisoners of war after this incident.

Colonel shows site of where German machine gunner was buried by a local farmer

Colonel emerges from the first trail from the beach cleared by allied tanks

Machine gun nest!

Airborne tourist in Saint Mere Eglise

Tourist trapped

Lake finds bullet mark in church wall

Stained glass paratroopers in Saint Mere Eglise church

Pumper

Saint Mere Eglise diorama

Diorama detail

2004 tranquility

Chateau

Survivor

Lake explains his haircut to perplexed Colonel

Dunes on Utah Beach

"Rommels Asparagus" at Utah Beach

The Colonel chats with Utah Beach veteran

Sherman

Radio in Utah Beach Museum

Utah Beach Allies

"Over there..."

Mederet River meadow which was flooded by Rommel. Hundreds of American paratroopers drowned here

Mederet river bridge, site of a three day battle in which 82nd Airborne struggled to hold position against German counter attacks.

Bridge and causeway in 1944

Maison de laFriere where Colonel Roy Lindquist of the 508th established headquarters from disorganized scattered elements of several airborne regiments.

Bas relief memorial to fallen paratroopers shaped like a deflating parachute

Details etched in bronze

I was briefly a part of the 508th Airborne Regimental Combat Team when I went to "jump school" at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was totally unaware of its history.

Church at XXXXX, at other end of 300 yard causeway

from Mederet River bridge: 1944

Church today

Tank casualties on causeway 1944.

Although manned by Germans they were actually Renault tanks captured from the French during the German invasion in 1940.

The causeway from the same point of view today!

La Pont du Hoc

Site of Ranger attacks up these cliffs!

Low Tide

Mulberries off Arromanches

Mulberries were floating docks towed from Britain to use in offloading supplies until a true port could be captured.

American mulberries were destroyed in violent storm

only days after they were set up.

Tourists cavort

Twilight

German "88" near beach in Arromonches

A small British cemetery.

Small cemeteries like this were scattered throughout Normandy because the British buried their dead where they fell.

Huge American Cemetery overlooking Normandy Beach.

Then...

Now