Omaha Beach and Pont du Hoc (Part 3)

As I recall the trip, our journey from Omaha Beach area to Pont du Hoc actually involved a drive down just beside the beach area west of the American Cemetery. There are houses now along some of this beach area, and it appears to be a small resort (sort of). After driving the short beach front, the road curves left and up out of the beach area. With a huge metal temporary bridge (I think one of those devices they must have used to offload war materials from landing ships) alongside the road as you ascend from the beach area, it's not hard to imagine what was going on on this road 60 years ago (from the time of our 2004 visit).

We drove west along the coast road to Pont Du Hoc. There's a small unremarkable visitor center there, but what is remarkable are the ruins of Hitler's Pont du Hoc defenses. Sources say that the area was well bombed, if not blown up by other means and the deep craters throughout the area attest to this.

Pont du Hoc itself is breathtaking, particularly when you consider that U.S. Rangers ascended it under fire (gotta get a good D-Day book or see if I don't already have it in my collection--also gotta see the old movie, "The Big Red" which Chris said is a good flick of the D-Day events).

There are some fine gun emplacements and some really good concrete bunkers which pictures do better justice to. Needless to say, the effects of time are starting to take a toll on even Hitler's solid war defenses. . .I sat inside some blasted up gun emplacements and noticed the crumbling concrete. Seems like I recall they had barriers up to going into certain gun emplacements due to safety concerns.

Next stop. . .Arromanches (Part 4). . .