They Walk With You

Today began as a cold, wet, windy, and appallingly miserable day. It is part of Paris' mischievous charm that it still seemed beautiful out, and all the more so when we all met at the Seine-ward left leg of the Tour Eiffel at about 8:15 this morning to begin our Battlefield Tourism trip. We all gathered, headed for the bus, and were off 9:00am. A few hours of driving; a brief station stop for coffee, snacks, and a leg stretch; and another hour or so on the highway saw us to the small town of Courseulles sur Mer. Despite being three hours from Paris, Courseulles was just as full of wind and rain, and a leisurely lunch at a local seafood restaurant did a good job of cheering us up, especially the espresso and dessert course. A plateful of chocolate mousse, raspberry and cream puree, rice pudding, and a trio of wee cookies works wonders.

We left afterward for the Juno Beach Centre, and it was an engaging and moving three hours. We started with an introduction to their temporary 70th anniversary exhibit by the program manager, Marie Vaillancourt. The exhibit was called; "Grandma, what was it like during the war?". It was set up to be an account of the occupation and liberation of D-Day through the lens of being a young student, a child, or a family. It contrasted life in occupied France to the war efforts of families and children in Canada, and was a well designed exhibit that was interesting to all of us, despite the level of the intended audience, and it was a unique one. How many war or military museums are directed at children? It was expressly intended, Marie told us, to help facilitate a dialogue between generations, and give questions and answers about what life during the war, and particular the school and family experiences of those who would have been young children and teenaged civilians.

Juno Beach Centre Exhibits

After the exhibit, we went on a guided tour of the two excavated bunkers that were a small part of the vast atlantic wall, and we went to the beach itself, and the guide spoke of the numbers of the killed and wounded, the defences they overcame, and what it meant to the liberated city and the next steps in the Battle of Normandy.

The Command Bunker, and Control Bunker at Juno Beach

Juno Beach; April 25, 2014

 It was a subdued moment, and when we returned to the museum to view the short film of Canadian soldiers perspective of preparing for and arriving at the beaches, the feeling lingered. We continued into a self guided wander through the museum itself, and the various areas covered Canadian battles, war efforts, history, and up to contemporary society. After we went through, we viewed another short film, this time about the experiences of the soldiers, and the realities they faced of fear, pain, and death. It was entitled "They Walk With You", and ended on a chokingly emotional scene of a modern tourist family walking the lengths of Juno beach, and discussing the events that happened there with their children. Behind them walked the ghosts of the hundreds of soldiers killed at Juno. It was, as Sarah said to Marie during our Q&A session which followed, a powerful ending.

It was on this emotional note that our first official day ended, and we travelled on to our hotel, the Reine Mathilde,  in the town of Bayeux. I think the unexpectedly emotional nature of the tour is setting the bar for the following ten days we have together. We still have Vimy and Dieppe to come, and tomorrow we're heading to the Caen memorial, a Q&A with their director, and Bayeux Tapestry.

Right now, in the early evening, the sky has cleared, the rain has stopped, and the sun came out for a final short few hours for our free time, as if the earlier weather was a sort of inverted pathetic fallacy to put us even slightly closer to the bleak, damp moods of June 6th, 1944.

Bayeux, Normandy. Bon Soiree.