The Footsteps Continue

This is our last day of following Dad in WWII and it did not disappoint.  Dad has to be following us on this journey with the way things have worked out.

We started the day out with a non-WWII experience as we visited the Bayeux Tapestry, a museum containing a cloth that is a couple feet wide and at least a couple hundred feet long with pictures (sewn, not photos) detailing William the Conquerer in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Photos were not allowed.

Coming out of the Tapestry we saw this store alongside a river with a water wheel used to grind wheat into flour.

We were walking past the cathedral and noticed the door open so in we went and did a look around. There were flags of many nations and beautiful stained glass. We bought and lit a candle for Dad.  Here are the photos.

Then we climbed into our van and hit the road. Off we went to the D-Day Experience Museum in Saint-Come-Du-Mont. This had come highly recommended by Erwin at the windmill way back in Eerde.  It started with a lengthy 3D video about the situation leading up to D-Day, the actual landing, and the following battle involving the 101st Airborne. Then we sat through a pre-flight briefing for a parachute drop into Normandy and the three guys boarded a C-47 simulator and had a flight over the English Channel to the drop zone at Normandy when our C-47 was hit by flak and burst into flames.  The C-47 windows were actually small tv screens that simulated what we should see. We crash landed and that ended the simulation. Here it is.

We then looked at part of a WACO glider containing a jeep. Dad went into Holland in one of these.

We then headed off to visit St. Mere Eglise, made famous because of a paratrooper whose parachute got hung up on the church steeple. He hung there for several hours before the Germans got him down.  They still leave a parachute hanging on the steeple.

And then our day took an incredible turn. At a sidewalk table eating lunch nearby was an elderly gentleman wearing a 101st Airborne cap. Bruce and Jackie started talking to him and we were all introduced to 95 year old Bob Noody. Normally this wouldn’t mean much, but back in 1944 as Bob and others had just taken their seats in a C-47 preparing to parachute drop them into Normandy, a camaraman stuck his head in the door and snapped a photo. That photo became world famous and is still shown in museums, magazine’s, etc.  Here is the photo.

That is Bob Noody of Fighting Fox Company on his way to D-Day. We had lengthy discussion with him and he and Dad were in the same places. When we mentioned that he commented Bronze Star, correct?  Yes, dad earned a Bronze Star.

What an incredible unbelievable WWII trip this has been. And tomorrow we split up in Paris. Karen and I are on our way to Germany to see Cory and Steph.

Bryan