From the June 5th Chicago Tribune by Rick Steves.
Earlier this month we observed the 67th anniversary of D-Day. Two years ago there was a huge observance held in Normandy, France. It is unlikely that too many of the veterans will be able to mark the 70th anniversary.
The region of Normandy remains particularly fond of Americans. Steves remarked that while there, an elderly French man approached him and sang a few bars of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The Normandy sites are spread along 75 miles of coastline and it takes a full day to explore them. Steves suggest a rental car or a minivan tour. "As you travel the narrow lanes of this still-rural area, you get a taste of the boldness, complexity and hardships of the Allied undertaking."
A good place to start the tour is at the town of Arromache. Here, the Allies built a make-shift harbor and in just 12 days, positioned massive concrete platforms and built roads nearly a mile long that floated on pontoons. It was here that more than 300,000 more troops and equipment came ashore after the initial fighting. There is a small D-Day Landing museum in the town.
The sheer magnitude of this supply effort is amazing. Without new supplies, amminition and troops, the tenuous Allied toe-hold in Normandy could not have been sustained.
More to Come. --DaCoot
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