American Cemetery Omaha Beach

The American Cemetery above Omaha:

The front entrance contains some beautiful statues and monuments.

There is also a registry where you can look up who is interned in the cemetery and what site they are located at. Dad, John, and I went in and Dad found several guys from the 467th AAA that had died on Omaha and he also found Captain Napier’s location who was killed in St. Lo in July 1944 by American bombing.

This a beautiful and serene place and “Star of David” markers are also intermixed with the 1000s of white crosses. We left Dad alone for awhile but we also helped for some time finding the sites of people that he knew or were in the 467th AAA.

Below is Captain Raymond Napier’s marker.

CO of Battery A, 467th AAA who had done such an admirable job of directing his units onto the beach in the morning and keeping many of them from significant harm through his reconnaissance and leadership. For him to lose his life at St. Lo from misdirected friendly bombing must have been incredibly disheartening to the others in his Battery yet they went on to a significant number of additional hard battles and missions for another 10+ months with several more unit commendations.

Placido Quinonez, Ed Durnult who both died on Omaha in the 467th AAA landings were also buried here and we visited their resting sites. I noticed that Dad’s Battery A group was from all over the country Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, Louisiana and from many different religions and ethnic groups. They were from all over the country and put together in a small units of 8-16 men. Brothers drawn together from different regions and backgrounds under extraordinary circumstances. Whenever they talked or recollected there was always a “deep” bond and solemn respect for each other.

Arromanches and the Museum

Visiting St Lo

The LIberation of St Lo

My Dad was very proud of the liberation of St. Lo and mentioned it alot when discussing his tour in Europe. This city was brutalized and to see pictures of it with barely nothing standing is a heart wrenching reminder of the destructive power of artillery and bombing. Dad remembers that one Church in town withstood the bombing and fighting and we went to see that Church that still stands today. Here is a picture we took of it as it was in 1994.

This largely happened during the month of July 1944. As an AAA Battery you get attached to whoever needs you and often reassigned and attached. After the beaches were secured, Battery A of the 467th AAA spent some time protecting ammo dumps and the like from aircraft attack and then they began significant fighting through hedgerow country around the various towns and villages. I am little light on the time period details but I remember my Dad discussed that a particular British gentleman that was with them did not dig and sleep in his foxhole at night like the others. Well they found him dead one morning from shrapnel between the hedgerows. While the Normandy beaches were brutal the Liberation of St. Lo took a month or so and was a tough fight especially for those in the hedgerow country.

Here is a shot of part of the town of St. Lo in its devastation.

We visited St. Lo right after Pointe Du Hoc. Dad mentioned to me alot about hedgerow fighting stories, including lots of other tragedies and difficulties that happened during this period such as bombing fratricide incidents. The fratricide incident was largely due to lack of ground-aerial coordination at that time and other miscues during operations. Smoke from earlier bombings had blown over friendly troop areas and masked actual targets. Captain Napier , loved by all the men of Battery A, also died during this fight from inaccurate American bombing that struck the Battery A Command Post due to inaccurate bombing.

Some of Dad’s Brothers-in-Arms Battery A Unit 4

--short story of the accidental bombings from Hyman Haas --

“We slowly advanced to the St.Lo area where we did much maneuvering and firing. On July 25th we were surprised to see wave after wave of our B17 and B24 Bombers fly overhead and begin to bomb the St. Lo area. It seemed hours that they Bombed. They also Bombed our Command Post and most of our men there, including Captain Napier, were killed. Lieut. Paul Nauer became our new C.O. The news of Captain Napier's death had a terrible effect on the unit. This was a shock that was hard to overcome. We had dug and fought our way to this position for almost two months and we were showing the strain. The positive part of the bombing was that soon we broke out of Normandy.” -- Haas

The breakout at St. Lo called for a massive bombing of the German lines prior to the Allied attack. As the lead bombers struck the target, huge clouds of smoke and debris were carried north over the American lines. It completely obscured the target to the succeeding waves of bombers. Those bombadiers 'dropped' on the smoke clouds as they were trained to do. As the clouds drifted northward, the bombs began dropping on units staged for the attack. Lieutenant General Leslie McNair, Commanding General of the Army Ground Forces, had traveled from Washington to observe the attack - he was killed in the bombing. As mentioned, the 467th also lost men in the accidental bombing of American of the front lines that day.

Out of the pan and into fire right off Omaha Beach. The halftracks of the 467th AAA were deployed around and through the St. Lo area throughout the month of July. Once the breakout occurred they began a swift march towards Paris area during August during its liberation period and then on into and across the Belgium region towards the battle of Aachen.

During St. Lo, I recall my Dad saying his unit was attached to the 29th so Dad was excited to find the street in St. Lo named in honor of their Division and the 35th.

 

 

Next: American Cemetery Omaha Beach

Pointe Du Hoc

We visited the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc and got a feeling for what the 101st was up to with those cliffs and big gun emplacements. The moon craters were everywhere from being bombarded and are still there after 50 years.

You can see it here in this overhead from Google Earth.

You can go into the gun emplacements and truly see how large a set of sguns were emplaced here.

It began to rain during our time at Pointe du Hoc but we stuck around long enough to tour and walk through most of what was there.

I was impressed by the unbelievable size of the gun emplacements and the engineering systems needed to run everything. There were literally large train tracks systems built to bring the ammunition forward to be placed in the gun.

John and Dad checked out some of the views from the bunkers and Dad spent some time reading the Ranger memorial plaque. I remember him being interested in that because they had camped nearby some of the Rangers in when marshaling in England prior to departure.

 

 

Next: VisitVisiting St Loing St. Lo

Finding the 467th AAA Memorial on Omaha Beach

Searching the various pathways, bunkers, and dugouts around the St. Laurent sur Mer pass we stumble across a dedication plaque to Dad’s 467th AAA AW Battalion not even expected or known by anyone of us ahead of time.

This was a fantastic find and made Dad and our day. Here is Dad next to the plaque.

As you can see from the plaque some of the others members had been in attendance at the dedication when this was placed on the pillbox on June 6, 1994. The was the site of a German 88 gun which was knocked out by members of the 467th AAA Battery A on the morning of June 6, 1944 (see Sgt. Hyman Haas’s account of that incident). Dad was in the same platoon and can vividly remember Hyman’s unit firing on this defense. The defense bunker is part of Widerstandsnestern (WN) 65, in German basically meaning resistance nests.

This is somewhat directly in the center of the Omaha beach area (pretty much were Dad’s platoon landed) and the main armament of WN65 was a 50 mm cannon housed in a type H667 casemate that was only completed in late April 1944. Also installed nearby were two mortars housed in Tobruks (machine gun nests basically), and covering the road further up the hill was an old 75 mm gun hidden in the woods.

WC65 had a lot of underground interconnecting bunkers and storage facilities in the hills above the draw.

Here we are exploring some that are still there.

Unfortunately Dad missed this dedication and reunion but had gotten in touch with a few of the surviving members, mainly Hyman Haas, whom I had also emailed over many years about Dad. Hyman Haas later sent Dad a personal video and a correspondence about the dedication ceremony. Some of Hyman’s description of the beach scene was referred to and used by historian Stephen Ambrose in his D-Day chronicles, pg.489 of his book D-Day. I will likely have a separate entry on Hyman if I can pull up some of his old emails. Fantastic guy may he rest in peace and I drew much of my evidence and knowledge from crosschecking his oral record against other records like Navy LCT official records of after actions and later various battle incidents he recalls in his memoirs..

The pictures below taken by John shows Dad and I celebrating awhile John snaps a picture. John is celebrating too he’s just not in the picture! See him above in trenches.qw

While this trip had alot of great moments this was one of my favorites. When you find something directly related to your journey that you didn’t even know you were looking for its just great.

Here is Dad walking up the same draw from the Beach that they left heading towards WN65.

I just wish Dad could have met some of his old buddies their just weren’t many of them left from his Battery A unit. Hyman Haas (Battery A) and friends (from various Batteries) had been here a few months earlier to dedicate this plaque. Here is the same bunker the day after the landings on June 7, 1944 showing some POWs cleaning up the beach area.

 

 

Next: Point Du Hoc

Snails on the Hills

One morning while staying at the Port-en-Bessin Hotel de la Marine Dad and I climbed up the hills to the South of the harbor entrance. It was a beautiful and the picture below I took is from a similar vantage point. Although I realized years touring the US National Galley of Art that Georges Seurat’s painting of ”Seascape at Port-en-Bessin” is the exact location as one is climbing on the trails away from Hotel de Marine.

The sun had just risen and as we walked up the cliffs talking about a few things and how well the trip was going and then I noticed lots of things moving in grass.

There were literally hundreds of snail climbing through the dewy morning sea grass on the hill. It was just really interesting and I’ve never seen anything like it.

Ok, we were to eat escargot appetizers later that night in the hotel seafood restaurant right below the cliffs.

Fresh, local food. Ecofriendly. I haven’t had snails since because I know they are not fresh. Or am I kidding myself. It didn’t matter the Hotel de la Marine restaurant escargot was fantastic in all its buttery and “garlicky” goodness as were the seafood entrees. Really love that town and love that hotel.

Also they had a great pastry shop on the main drag as brother John also discovered and brought back several treasures for us one morning.

Yum!

 

 

Next: Finding the 467th AAA Memorial on Omaha Beach