Dave the Nomad

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for your service abroad and at home. Except for the past few years when I have actually had friends serving in the Armed Forces, Veteran’s Day (as we Americans like to call it) has been a lesser known holiday on my personal calendar.

Today, has been the most memorable Remembrance Day I’ve ever had.

I took a fast train back up to Amiens, France in order to get some work done, and found myself on a day trip with Geoff to the Beaches of Dieppe and the V2 bunker of St. Omer. There is only so much you can comprehend of past battles until you see the places first hand. Looking at pictures in history books, and reading excerpts means nothing until you see the ridges they fought for, walk on the land that so many lost their lives over, and breathe the air passing over.

Dieppe was the site of the first attempted beach landing by the Allied Forces in Occupied France during WWII. The cost in lives was heavy, and borne primarily by 5,000 Canadian Forces. However, it is also the first time American forces saw ground action against the Germans in WWII. The lessons learned from this bloodbath raid gone awry helped prepare the Allied forces for the D-Day landing nearly two years later.

Today we arrived after a beautiful sun speckled drive across Northern France’s dotted green fields and a venerable wind to the coastal plain. As we approached the coast, rain spattered on the windshield and dark grey clouds whisked by leaving no time to contemplate their shape or stature. The beach of Puys was wet with the mist from turbulent waves breaking at high tide on the walls below. The rocky beach provided a violent and raucous reprisal for silent thoughts as visions of men storming the beach with its high white cliffs and opaque water rushed through my head. Farther down the beach is the down of Dieppe, originally founded by William the Conqueror. Still holding onto its fishing village roots, the town was wet and true to its being with a port surrounded by townhouses and the faint smell of fish. Unlike fair weather ports farther south harboring yachts and elegant ships, this was a city clinging to a violent past, proud and maintained without the necessities or demands of tourism. Here at daybreak Aug 19, 1942, on the town beach, thousands of men (5/6 of which were Canadian) were mowed down by machine gun fire and met by uncleared beaches and prepared Germans.

Today, the town was nearly empty. Artificial poppy wreaths dotted small memorials around the city and beachhead, damp and leaf covered since the weekend onslaught of veterans. Although it is not as memorable to most of the world, this beach was instrumental in victorious landings made years later at Normandy’s D-day beaches, and should not be washed out of memory.

Our second stop for the day was the German V2 launch bunker in St. Omer. This site has the feel of Dr. No’s evil headquarters but over grown like Mayan Pyramids lost in the New World. The immensity of this structure is unbelievable, and the imagery inside almost overwhelming. The site never launched a V2 rocket (a key stepping stone in the development of NASA) at nearby England . The site is now a museum showcasing not only the history of rockets, but also the local history of Northern France in WWI and WWII. As I look through these pictures of utter destruction, I try to fathom a daily loss of 73,000 people in present day terms. This may take a couple seconds to those reading about this, or to those, like me, grateful enough to not see such atrocities in person. I can only imagine what the men in WWI experienced in the trenches they called home, and the emotions that overcame them.

I have not mentioned much about my fraternity yet in my postings, but I think this is a most apt time to do so. I would like to leave you with a poem written by one of my fraternity brothers of past who was a field physician during WWI. It is a poem we all remember, and I ask that you take a moment on this day to contemplate as well:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. Dr. John McCrae
Canadian 1st Field Artillery Brigade
Zeta Psi, Theta Xi Chapter 1894

Posted on November 11th, 2008 under Background, History. Tags: Coupole, Dieppe, St. Omer, V2, Veteran's Day, WWI, WWII. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.