Normandy

We went to Normandy for a weekend, staying at an old Norman farm operated as an inn.

It was a beautiful old place with a braying donkey in the barn and a little black cat that played hide and seek with the boys. The owner was the son of a Parisian doctor, Jean-Claude Houdret, who had famously helped the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld lose 90 pounds in 13 months. The younger Houdret wanted to turn the farm into a weight-loss spa based on the Lagerfeld diet.

We visited Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc and the remnants of the German defenses there.

The bluffs of Pointe du Hoc, where the Germans had major guns overlooking the beaches, are riddled with bomb craters.

An aerial view taken from the Internet.

Sky descending into a bomb crater.

At the bottom. In fact, the bombing missed the German defenses above Omaha beach and the beach itself, where the bombs were intended to provide some cover for soldiers coming ashore.

The Germans had six casemates to house a battery of captured French 155mm guns at Pointe du Hoc. They moved the guns inland before the attack but bombing destroyed some of the casements.

A U.S. military plan of the 2nd Rangers Battalion assault on Pointe du Hoc, misspelled Pointe du Hoe on the map.

A Ranger battalion took the point after scaling the cliffs with grappling hooks and ladders. The area is considered a cemetery because so many people died there.

Another picture taken from the Internet. This shows German soldiers firing at the approaching Ranger battalion from Pointe du Hoc.