Skip to main content

Artifacts

As I near the end of my Normandy Institute experience, it seems appropriate to share with my readers some of the more fascinating artifacts I've had the chance to see over here.

A Jeep. This one is mocked up as a British Jeep, which reminds me of how our supplies often went to our Allies. According to readings, the Jeep also amazed the French civilians (as did the staggering amount of stuff our soldiers brought, handed out, and left behind). The Jeep might be the best symbol of our industrial prowess. 

The actual Pegasus Bridge. This is a bridge seized by British glider troops. It was moved a short distance from the canal. This might have been the first part of France liberated in the early of D-Day. 

A C-47 with its victory stripes. I've seen C-47's (workhorses for the U.S. Air Force) before, but I've never had the chance to get up above. I got that chance at the Airborne Museum. 

Artifacts from occupied France: money and ration coupons. At today's cemetery tour we heard a woman tell us of how her older relatives recounted the days of occupation. It's hard for me to imagine how dark those days were. 

I absolutely love the term "red ball" which I believe was the era's slang for responsibly hurrying. 

Great photograph at Utah Beach museum. It's of a U.S. soldier taking in a Germany P.O.W. The caption indicates the probability that the flag was given to him by an American officer who wanted to better stage the photograph. 

A Higgins Boat. Maybe this was a more appropriate symbol of our industrial might. The thousands of landing craft that made D-Day possible weren't even invented yet on December 1, 1942. 
 
A Sherman tank behind an obstacle of the sort standing on the beaches on June 6. 
Of course there were many other artifacts of interest on this trip. But these seemed the most meaningful, made more so because of the readings and lectures we had. This was a trip of sites, however, more than stuff, and I look forward to telling you about those sites next.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Thoughts on Liberation

One of the markers placed by the French and Belgian governments to mark the path of the liberators.  My greatest takeaway from this most recent trip involves some refined feelings about liberation. I'm writing this post in a time of high cynicism. And the were matters of which one could be cynical back in 1944, the year in which Charlie fought and died. This trip, however, left me with renewed appreciation for what our country did back in that war, helping me refocus on what I've had the chance to see and do the past few years. Christopher is the military historian who accompanied us on this voyage. In one of our webinars this spring, he made an offhand reference to a piece of scholarship about the Holocaust he said was worth reading. It's entitled Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. It's heavy. I can't say I read every chapter. But I read most of it on our bus rides this summer. And I'm glad I did. My unassigned reading. Saying that Bloo...
1 comment
Read more

Day of Days

It's the seventy-third anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-Day. That means it is also the seventy-third anniversary of Bill's death. Bill, of course, is 1st Lt. Edmund William Duckworth. A map Lauren uncovered in her research.  To learn about the circumstances of Bill's death, I have done a lot of reading to better understand what led up to and took place on D-Day. I saw a post today on Facebook that discussed, quite well, the anxiety, unease, apprehension, and even frivolity that characterized the soldiers on the night before the invasion. D-Day was months in the making, and the soldiers who landed on those five beaches on June 6 had been preparing for the invasion for weeks or even months. In the immediate week before the invasion, they were queued up in embarkation areas and on ships, awaiting their chance to go. They were penned up for days. Knowing this adds more weight to the very difficult call General Eisenhower had to make, whether or not to go on June 6...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Navy Cross

Staff Sergeant Bruce Mathewson, Jr., distinguished himself on his last day with actions and leadership that earned him the Navy Cross . It was awarded to him posthumously: the medal itself was given to his son, Earle, who had just turned two before his father died. Accounts of Bruce's final day constitute the most fascinating components of his personnel file and other documents I've received from the National Archives. The citation for Bruce's Navy Cross.  The citation for Bruce's Navy Cross doesn't come up until page 330 of his 530-page OMPF, and I first came across the faded type-written document back in May when I was furiously skimming his files. A few pages later, there is a "Combat Award Recommendation Card" that offers a few more details of the event. It mentions that Bruce died of three gunshot wounds to his left side, that he was operating in a place with "Little concealment" and acting as a light machine gun section lead...
Post a Comment
Read more