Another big day - we had to make up the 20k to St Lo, then get on the trail to Cherbourg. Today was DDay. St Lo was a famous battle site for the Allied armies under Montgomery. Otherwise, we found it a non event. The crawl out of St Lo was just staggering - it was steeply uphill for 2-3k and we didn't bother getting on the bikes!!! Once out of the town we were glad to get going. By the time we got to Carentan I had been promising Julie the flat lands of the Caretan where I knew the 101 US airborne troops were dropped on 6 June. The land is indeed flat and very watery - there were 89 US paratroopers drowned on the airdrop because the occupying forces had flooded the Caretan area. Their packs were too heavy once they dropped in to water, even shallow water.
By the time we got to Caretan there were initial sights of DDay activity. The days are mostly miserable thick clowd - today we thought it was actually raining but it was just really thick mist.
We got lost in Caretan and couldnt find our way out, but when we did we bumped into 'Dead Mans Corner' - now a museum of the US military, where the first paratroopers came down. We met one of them on the boat the next day who had dropped exactly there, his friend dropped a few hundred meters away right into the lap of the Green Devils, the crack German paratroopers, and along with others were sadly all killed. It was an honour to meet him.
We left Dead Mans corner and made our way to St Mere Eglise where the paratrooper came down and was caught on the church steeple. A dummy still hangs there. The town was crawling with DDay activity - US jeeps everywhere, men in US AA military uniform, trucks, marching up and down the street - it was really an electric atmosphere. We couldnt wait for the parade, but headed to Orglandes - a special place. It is a hardly known village on the way to Cherbourg - a military cemetery with more than 20,000 men of ages from 18 that I saw to mid forties. This is one of four 'cimetiere' for German soldiers in the area. I had previously been to the one at La Combe. This was a very sobering moment for us. I stood in the midst of this very sacred place where 6 soldiers shared the one headstone - all brothers, sons, fathers and husbands of german families there through no fault of their own. It was difficult for us to leave.
Cherbourg from here was a huge effort. It was over 100k today, and we never thought we'd get there. The climbs returned, and we ambled into town at about 9pm at night, the last few k frighteningly downhill. We had a great hotel on the waterfront to complete an historic day for us.
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