Vierville Castle Omaha Beach
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| Steel grass. Reinforcement from destroyed bunkers at Pointe du Hoc |
I had a series of meetings planned in Paris which would keep me France over the weekend and Loic, a friend from Dubai who was from a partner organisation, was also attending the meeting. He is French but had lived outside France for a long time and he invited me to visit one of the family houses in either Brittany or Normandy. As I didn’t have a lot of time and Normandy was closer, I suggest that this would be the better option.
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| Vierville Castle about 400 metres inland from Dog Green. The foundations were laid at the time of William the Conquer. There was a complete castle wall but all that is left is the tower in the trees on the left which was partially destroyed by naval gunfire |
Loic’s family own what is commonly known as Vierville castle just 300m above the Dog section of Omaha beach where the Allies encountered the most significant resistance from the Germans during the D-Day landings on the 6th of June 1944. The events of the morning were depicted in the opening scene of the movie 'Saving Private Ryan'.
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| Just what every farmer needs, an American M2A1 105 mm field gun There seemed to be more old Sherman tanks in the area than old Renault 2CVs |
We drove from Paris to Vierville with Loic’s father who generously volunteered to act as driver and resident historian for our journey. This was great as we met him near Versailles and travelled through the Viking influenced Normandy to Bayeux, home of the 90 metre Bayeux tapestry which depicts the Norman invasion of England in 1066
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| War graves at the American Memorial above Omaha beach |
Our hosts, Odette and Jean-Paul, were part a large extended family and had farmed the land around the castle from just after the war. They gave an interesting and very personal history of the region.
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| Odette and Jean-Paul |
Odette and Jean-Paul open Vierville castle for veteran and the families of veterans on an ongoing basis
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| The formal dining room |
Vierville castle was an amazing piece of living history. Its foundation stones at one end of the building date from 1066 and the structure had been rebuilt and extended over the past 1000 years. Within in the property were all the sedimentary layers of history that you would expect in such a place.
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| The dovecote or pigeonnier or colombier in French |
I particularly liked the pigeon dovecote where the landowners were authorised to have a certain number of nesting spots based on their property size. The number of pigeons was important as they feed on the tenant farmers crops and acted as a de facto tax. It was all important to inspect the baby pigeons daily via a spiral staircase as they had to be butchered before they could fly or they became too tough!
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| The kitchen where Odette prepared a wonderful lunch |
We arrived around mid-day and we were joined by other members of the extended family as we enjoyed a wonderful lunch prepared by Odette. I certainly felt very privileged.
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| The music room. Much of the house is not heated due to the cost. I imagine that maintenance is a nightmare |
After lunch, Loic and I headed off for a run along the beach to look at the remnants of the American memorial and war graves. We ran back in the rain before going out for dinner.
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| A casement at Pointe du Hoc with the cliffs in the background. Rangers were landed under fire, scaling ladders were fired by rocket from the landing craft to allow them to assault the defences |
The next day I went for another run along the beach before Loic and I visited the site of the Ranger cliff assault on the guns at Point du Hoc before stopping in on our return to Paris at Arromanches. Here are the many remnants of the Mulberry harbour which, along with Omaha beach, became for a short period of time the busiest harbours in Europe.
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| Burnt timber linings of the casement at Pointe du Hoc. Jean-Paul had met a veteran who used flame throwers fired into the ventilation shafts to clear the defenders |
On the drive back to Paris I had time to contemplate current events, Brexit, U.S. questioning NATO participation, increased Russian military activity, Swedish reintroduction of conscription, forward deployments to Baltic states all add to a growing sense of instability. The visit to Omaha was a timely reminder that the stability that we have enjoyed in Europe was hard won and should not be taken for granted.
