D-Day at 67.

7 years ago today I was in Normandy, France participating in one of the most memorable experiences of my life; the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in 1944. Attending this once in a life time gathering was no small feat. This was not something one could just show up for. Hotels were sold out up and down the Peninsula a year in advance. Tickets were issued and only a very small number were held for members of the general public. The majority of the tickets rightfully went to the Veterans and their families, many of whom were returning for the first and probably last time since they set foot on the beaches 60 years earlier.

I began researching this trip at least 8 months ahead of time. I don't recall how I got tickets but I did manage to score two for my fiancee and myself. Her brother and his wife also managed to get in, but she was a retired Army Doc. So she knew people. I want to say I convinced someone in government that I was travelling as a photojournalist which was in part true. In 2004 the United States was deeply involved in two wars. Both George W. Bush and Jacque Chirac were both attending as were many other world dignitaries. Security in the entire region was fully locked down. This was the last big reunion of the veterans and the Allied powers since most veterans still alive were in their late 70's and 80's. This was the last one.

We started this trip on the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel for my fiancee's brother's wedding. Like me, he too was a history junky and already had been independently was planning on being there for the 60th as well and it was his wedding we attended at a beautiful manor on Jersey Isle. Not to be confused with Jersey Shore, or the Real Housewives of New Jersey, there is in fact a stunning island called Jersey that is Guido free and is an easy boat ride to Normandy, France in the English Channel.

We rented a car on June the 4th in Jersey and took the car Ferry over to Normandy. We got off somewhere near Cherbourg. Ill have to fill in the blanks later because I just don't remember the town we landed in. We had no hotel rooms booked as everything had sold out, to my dismay, at least a year or more before the event. We had our tickets and went forward nonetheless.

We spent the first night in some god awful ancient French B and B about 90 minutes from the main town in Normandy, Bayeaux, where we were going to head to on the 5th, the day the events were getting started. I had been to Normandy two times before so I knew my way around pretty well and had a good idea where we needed to stay. On the morning of the 5th we buzzed off towards the town of Bayeaux, France. Bayeaux was the closest town to the American Beach Sector where we planned on spending the next two days and I had stayed there before.

We had an easy drive through Northern Normandy and had intended to stop and visit Mt. St. Michel. I had been once before. We got close enough to take some pictures from a distance and bagged it. Too much to see and do. Arriving in Bayeaux, an ancient and small Norman town, we found it invaded by tour buses and journalists. We thought we had not a prayer of getting a room anywhere near the Beaches. We had heard the closest available hotel rooms were some two hours away and that some people were having to drive in from Paris.

Undeterred we walked into the biggest and only tourist class hotel in town, the Hotel Lion D'Or, begging for a room. Our prayers were answered. They had a last minute cancellation and we scored. We were now in D-Day Central. Festivities were already under way on the 5th since the first towns were actually liberated by US and British Paratroopers on June the 5th, 1944. The first town liberated by US forces was the village of St. Mere. Eglise. Depictions of the liberation of St. Mere. Eglise were covered in Steven Speilberg's "Band of Brothers" and the epic film "The Longest Day" after the book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan.

Though the roads were choked with traffic we made it to the outskirts just in time to see members of the US Army conduct a paratroop drop just outside the town. The C-130's who dropped the soldiers then conducted several low level fly by's over the town to the cheers of the throngs of onlookers. It was a surreal moment. Photographs of the paratroop drop and festivities in St. Mere. Eglise can be found on the photography site of June 5, 2004.

From St. Mere Eglise we hustled our way to the beaches to see what was going on. I learned from my first trip to the region that the landing beaches cover a vast area. On my first trip I honestly thought I could walk the beaches. Wrong. From tip to tip I believe they are over 50 miles of beach. So you have to see it in chunks. Since the main American events were taking place at Omaha Beach on the 6th we made our way to the British Sector at Arromanche.

Arriving at Arromanche parking was stacked for about a mile up from the beaches. As we made our way down to the beach we we felt ourselves walking back in time. The British Army had parked about a half dozen modern landing craft on the beaches at low tide and stocked them with functioning World War 2 era military equipment that were roaming the beaches including a couple of US Sherman Tanks. What a site. We spoke to some of the British Vets, got some photos and crawled out onto to sections of the beached Mulbery that had been both on and off the beach at Arromanche since 1944. The Mulberry was an artificial port built by the Allies that still remain in pieces on the beaches in the British Sector. Photos of the Mulbery can be seen in the June 5 gallery. We made our way back at the end of the day to Bayeaux.