Editor’s Note: Hunter Pearson was one of nine RSM US LLP
(RSM) employees given an opportunity to “pursue their passions” as a result of
the firm’s Pursue Your Passion (90-90-9) program. Through Pursue Your Passion, RSM is
supporting personal and professional aspirations by providing nine employees
with $90,000 ($10,000 each) and nine paid days off to fulfill their dreams.
Hunter’s dream? Help his grandfather live his dream
of returning to Normandy, to revisit life-changing experiences he had during
World War II. Read Hunter’s story:
On September 12 2017, the Pearsons embarked on their journey to Normandy. The crew consisted of Harvey Pearson (Grandfather and World War II veteran), Rebecca Pearson (my sister), Miriam and Dennis Pearson (Harvey’s son, Rebecca and I’s parents), Brian Hoysa (grandson), Gary Pearson (my uncle and Harvey’s son), Jay and Renea Pearson (cousin and wife), and Linda McLelland (cousin). We flew over in two waves with a rendezvous location of Charles De Galle airport in Paris, France. It was here that we united with 25 other participants, from 12 different states, and began our mission to Normandy.
Pierre-Samuel Natanson, “battlefield guide,” and Stephane Lamache, “tour manager,” met us at Charles De Galle with an itinerary and words of encouragement, knowing we were jetlagged. We were then told to “load-up” and the crew was off to our home base in Bayeaux, France.
Bayeaux is a small town in Normandy, which provided a central location to rest and rejuvenate each day. The wonderful staff at Hotel d’Argouges created one of our fondest memories. They quickly learned that my grandfather was a World War II veteran, and presented us with a complimentary cheese and cracker plate during happy hour. Toothpicks were placed in the cheese with the United States and French flags. As they presented the plate, they shook his hand and said, “Thank you for allowing us to be French.” We experienced moments like this throughout our trip and for that we are very grateful.
On the first night, we had a group dinner at a local restaurant in Bayeaux. The restaurant had a quaint ambience, which encouraged communication between the tour members, and enabled us to tell our stories. Stephane requested everyone’s attention and asked that a member of each party introduce themselves. I was voted to do this for our family and informed the additional 25 members of our journey who, why and how we were there. It was an emotional evening for me as I realized I was not only making a dream come true for my grandfather and I, but this was my family’s passion as well.
It was at this moment everything started to settle in. I imagined if it were 1944, I was 18 traveling across the Atlantic, removed from my friends and family, meeting new people, not knowing what the next would bring, not knowing if I would make it back from that day’s mission, etc. I maintained this mindset for the remainder of the trip in an attempt to understand what my grandfather and the men who fought in World War II experienced.
The next morning quickly came, and the tour was officially in motion. Each day had approximately five stops and the days were set in chronological order until the liberation of France. To help my grandfather conserve energy, we made sure a wheelchair was readily available. He didn’t think too highly of this and refused to use it the entire time. At age 92, he completed every stop and fully enjoyed the tour. (For a complete overview of the tour please read Pilgrimage to Normandy, written by Gary Pearson.)
Each day, we learned new details about the war, and gained new perspectives as we walked in the same footsteps of the brave soldiers in 1944. The final days quickly approached, which brought us to the most influential sights of the Invasion of Normandy concerning the United States, Utah and Omaha beaches. If you’re familiar with Saving Private Ryan, the opening scene is a depiction of what took place on Omaha Beach on D-Day. It was chilling to see the German defenses that remained and the superior tactical advantage they held. As the United States soldiers arrived on the beach they were sitting ducks. German cross-fire easily mowed down thousands of American soldiers. However, with superior arial support from the Allies, German defenses were overcome and the Atlantic Wall was breached.
Visiting these beaches created a few more family memories that are important to us. There was a small bar by the museum at Utah Beach named “Le Roosevelt.” The owner of this bar allowed veterans to sign the wall, tables, chairs, etc. When he found out about my grandfather, the owner gave him a special place to sign above a Marilyn Monroe picture. Little did he know, she was a favorite of his.
The final memory I’d like to mention took place at the American Cemetery by Omaha beach where nearly 10,000 American soldiers were buried. One of those men was my grandfather’s best man’s brother, Granville Payne. Prior to departing on our trip, we determined the location of Granville’s grave to take my grandfather there and lay flowers. Once located and respects were paid, he looked at me and said, “Hunter, I am officially done with Normandy.” It was not necessarily a happy moment but an emotional moment that needed to be had. I feel it brought closure concerning World War II, and fulfillment to my grandfather.
Massive amounts of people from all walks of life, different cultures, different languages, different beliefs, etc. came together for the common good. Many died but by believing in a common goal they were able to work together and change history. The resiliency shown and the sacrifices made by the United States, English, Dutch, Canadians, French, and all other Allies from June 6, 1944 to August 16, 1944 should never be forgotten.
The Pearson’s would like to sincerely thank the RSM and the RSM US Foundation for enabling this opportunity and helping to provide my grandfather his dream, for his influence in providing us the American Dream.
In addition to Hunter’s story, his uncle shared in what it meant to the family to pursue their passions.
The American Dream
PILGRIMAGE TO NORMANDY Pearson’s Relive D-Day Thanks to RSM US Foundation
Thanks to the RSM US Foundation and its essay contest “Pursue Your Passion,” our third-generation nephew, son, and grandson, Hunter Pearson, won the prize. It’s true Dad had tried to get to Normandy twice before. September 11, 2001 grounded his flight to Europe. On the second try Mom’s health started to fail and the trip again was cancelled. My brother and I revisited taking the trip time and time again, but never got past the talk stage. But with the contest prize money in hand there was no excuse and this third try was a charm for Dad’s dream.
He was stationed with the 15th Air Force in the Italian campaign and flew 50 highly dangerous missions over Europe from May 1944 to August 1944 as a left waist gunner on a B17 bomber. On June 6, 1944 his mission record shows the target was a marshalling yard in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The crew knew something was up because bomber command had sent up everything that would fly that morning, and he remembered the sky was dark with planes heading to their targets. When the crew returned that evening they were given the news that the invasion of Europe was on.
Our guides emphasized that one of the singular reasons for success on D-Day was the overwhelming superiority of aerial support. The battle for the skies was over and the bombing campaigns prior to D-Day played a great part in the victory at Normandy. Dad’s targets over places like the Polesti, Romania oil fields destroyed a large part of the Nazi war machine and its efforts to resupply planes, tanks, and other mobile units with critical petroleum supplies.
Our guides were honored to have a World War II veteran on the tour and a soldier who had served in the European theater on D-Day. They said that in their four years of conducting tours throughout Normandy, they had yet to guide a World War II veteran to the D-Day sites. I liked their comment that they didn’t know what was worse, “participating in the day to day slog through Normandy, spending the night in a foxhole, or returning to base and safety at night in your bunk knowing you’d have to do the same thing again the next morning.” In 1944, at 18, Dad was stationed in the square middle of the bomber armed with a 50 caliber machine gun. The Wehrmacht instructed their fighter pilots to strafe the bomber through his open window where it could do the most damage to the plane. As Hunter related in his essay, he is a true American hero, and at 92 he was in a condition to fully enjoy this tour.
The Tour Participants
There were ten of us on the tour. The guest of honor, Harvey Pearson; our first cousin, Linda McClelland; my brother, Dennis Pearson, whose family scored a 100% attendance; his wife, Miriam Pearson; daughter, Rebecca Pearson; and son, Hunter Pearson, the famous essay winner. Brian Hoysa represented my sister’s family, and I, Gary Pearson, was the eldest son. James and Renee Pearson, our first cousins from Lavonia, Georgia, rounded out the group.
So, with the generosity afforded by the RSM US Foundation, Hunter and Dad booked the Normandy tour through the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, from September 12 to September 20, 2017. The rest of us piled on and arrived at Charles De Galle airport and boarded the tour bus with 25 other souls bound for Normandy.
Our guides, Stephane Lamache, “Tour Manager”, and Pierre-Samuel Natanson, “Battlefield Guide”, would be with us the whole tour and deserve accolades for the wonderful service the Pearsons received.
What follows is an attempted brief synopsis of our journey through Normandy, the epic events of D-Day, and the aftermath of the invasion through France.
Where, When, and How
German intelligence knew an invasion was imminent. After all, three million troops were stationed in the British Isles and they weren’t there just for sightseeing. In preparation for the inevitable, in late 1942 the Germans started construction over what they called “the Atlantic Wall” along the Atlantic coast from Norway to Spain. Not one massive line of concrete, but a series of strong points making the most of the natural defenses hugging the coast.
How would the Allies penetrate these defenses? They had learned a few lessons on what not to do. The failure of the commando raid at Dieppe was one example. In 1942, British forces conducted a raid on the port of Dieppe and most of the forces were killed or captured. Invasion of any heavily defended port was doomed to disaster. The beach had to be packed sand, not a rocky coast where equipment could get bogged down. This seemed to indicate the Allies would try for the Calais sector, close to England, and consequently the Atlantic Wall was heavily fortified there. Normandy seemed to rise in the planning stage with its intermittent sandy beaches, its potential for surprise because of its distance from England, and the fact that its defenses were still in the construction phase and not yet complete. Then there was the when factor to consider. There had to be a full moon for the paratroopers, favorable tides and stable weather for the landing craft.
The Germans monitored the weather daily, the Allies hourly, and on June 4th the meteorologists informed the Allied high command that a break in the front was approaching on June 6th. The next window would be toward the latter end of July and Ike knew any further delay would sap morale. The order was given.
A surprise of sorts was achieved. Rommel was in Germany and most of the German brass could not imagine the invasion would occur under these weather conditions. The ships, planes, and men moved toward their staging positions.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
The British and Canadian Sectors
There was no better place to start than the Pegasus Bridge that spans the Orne River. The Bridge was taken by surprise, with just one casualty. The three British Horsa gliders stopped within yards of the bridge entrance and this key objective was taken without a fight. It would not be so easy for some of the other sectors on the longest day. The British and Canadian flanks were secure with the taking of the Pegasus Bridge, but the hard work for the frontal assault would be through Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. Today there are many vacation homes on the British and Canadian sectors but those beaches came under heavy fire resulting in heavy casualties. One surprise for me was the statistic that the Canadians in the ratio of their population when compared to the other Allied countries took the highest casualties.
The Commonwealth cemeteries were laid out next to the field hospitals and are cared for by the English and Canadian governments. The thought was to create a garden like the internees would know in their native countries, and the grounds are beautiful, remote, and peaceful. Each tombstone is etched with a legend chosen by the decedent’s family. Another highlight on the day’s tour was the artificial harbor at Arromanches, known as Mulberry Harbor. Churchill backed the project, which entailed filling barges with concrete and sinking them off the beach to create an artificial harbor for the ships to unload badly needed supplies. The capture of ports would come later and these artificial harbors were crucial for the success of the invasion.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Utah Beach and the Paratrooper Landing Zones
The next day would bring exploration of the sites captured and held by the paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne. To seize bridges and crossroads, the Allies had invested resources in creating paratrooper units to land behind the lines to hold strategic areas and then link up with the forces coming from the beach.
The Allies had been impressed by what they thought were successful operations by German units in the battle for the island of Crete, but what they didn’t know was that the Germans sustained high casualties in that battle and had given up on creating new paratrooper units. The technology to guide a parachute had not yet developed and there was a high probability the landings could not be concentrated.
The drop zones were missed and the units were scattered. This, however, may have contributed to the success of their mission because the Germans got reports of landings from all over the area and were confused about the ultimate strategy of the invasion.
One unforeseen success of this operation was the ambush at Chateau de Bernaville of the highest-ranking German commander in Normandy on the night before the invasion. Thinking that his communications trailer would be more secure if it was separate from his comfortable lodging at the Chateau, he concealed the trailer in the woods. When the first reports filtered in, he drove from the Chateau straight into an ambush set up by the paratroopers and was killed. This delayed counterattacks the next day when the Germans did not know that he had died and there was no one in charge.
The heroics of the paratroopers at the bridge approaching La Fiere was a worthwhile stop where it was explained how the troops stopped five German tanks that tried to destroy a bridge needed to move the Allied forces inland. It is hard to imagine the ferocity of the fighting there overlooking this bucolic scene.
Then the towns of Ste-Marie-du Mont, taken by the 101st Airborne, and the tale of the 82nd Airborne at Ste-Mère-Eglise, where the parachute still hangs from the church steeple, were riveting, as well as the museum with its restored C-47 aircraft.
Eisenhower was asked what three weapons won the war. He replied, “The Jeep, the bazooka, and the C-47,” being the workhorse aircraft, which I always thought was a surprising choice.
The stained glass window in the chapel at Ste-Mère-Eglise, showing the descending paratroopers, was very moving. All throughout the square you could still see the pockmarks on the buildings from the shells and bullets that were shot that night.
The guides emphasized that the area behind Utah Beach was marshy and the Germans had flooded the area so it was imperative the paratroopers take and hold the exits from the beach, which they did.
At Utah Beach the heroics of Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the President, were recounted. The troops missed their landing zones by half a mile and the decision had to be made whether to fight back to the planned landing zone and not confuse the expected reinforcements of the second wave. General Roosevelt gave the command, “The war starts here,” and there was no delay in moving off the beach and making their original objective.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Pointe du Hoc
The fighting for Pointe du Hoc would not be as easy as the frontal assault on Utah Beach. Pointe du Hoc was located between Utah and Omaha Beach and was a narrow, elevated peninsula that jutted into the ocean with cliffs of 250 feet above the water. From this vantage point you could easily observe Utah and Omaha Beach and it was critical that the guns located there be neutralized for the safety of the invasion fleet. A squadron of 500 Army Rangers was assigned the task of scaling the cliffs, capturing this German strong point and neutralizing the guns thereon. The plan was to shoot grappling hooks to catch the cliff’s edge and then scale the cliffs under heavy fire from the machine guns above. This was the most heavily fortified position we saw on the tour, with the narrow peninsula covered with concrete pillboxes and, at the very tip of the peninsula, a heavily fortified observation post looking out over the open ocean. With casualties of fifty percent, the Rangers took the position, but found none of the guns that intelligence said were located there. The Germans had instead moved the guns inland a short distance and had substituted logs in their place where aerial reconnaissance would mistake them for the real thing. Shortly after the capture of Pointe du Hoc, a patrol was sent out and found the five naval guns and destroyed the trigger mechanism so they could not be reused.
German Panzer units counterattacked the small Ranger force, but they held their ground.
Historians in hindsight counted the Ranger effort as a futile one because the reputed guns on the site were not there. But as Pierre astutely observed, the Germans wanted this position because they could see the entire battlefield from Pointe du Hoc. The position could serve the Germans as a central brain system to launch an organized counterattack and the Rangers never let this happen. In that light, their heroic effort was a success.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Omaha Beach
It is difficult to describe the ferocious fighting and the Allies’ effort that occurred at Omaha Beach. The only comparison I can make is the Confederate General Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, which did not succeed, and the invasion force at Omaha Beach, which did succeed. Both were fortuitous events in the history of the American experience. There were three exits off Omaha Beach and high cliffs in between those exits. We visited the exit at St. Laurent-sur-Mer, the seawall where the American force was pinned down all morning a mere 100 yards from heavily fortified German positions. All morning the troops could not advance because of the murderous fire raining down from above. General Bradley, from his command ship, considered a re-embarkation of the invasion force because of the stall. He reconsidered when he saw the battleship Frankfurt that had disobeyed orders to come close into the beach making headway with its artillery barrage. Then, as Pierre again so astutely stated, events started to evolve. At the Lieutenant and Captain level, American officers on the beach used their training to improvise, so envied by the British High Command, and started to find weaknesses in the German defenses. In some places they gained positions on the ridge overlooking the beach. Slowly the troops moved off the beach but never reached their goals for the day. It truly was one of the most heroic efforts by any of the Allied forces on the first day.
I liked Pierre’s observation that you wanted experienced units, but not too experienced, because then the experienced units would be too cautious. The divisions picked for the first wave on Omaha were the 1st Division, the Big Red One, and the 29th Division, the Blue and the Gray. The first American division had experience in North Africa and Sicily. The 29th Division, comprising units from Maryland and Virginia, called up from the National Guard, had never experienced combat. Having visited the D-Day Memorial at Bedford, I was anxious to see where they landed. I will never forget seeing a pillbox that would catch the Bedford Boys in a crossfire. Nineteen Bedford Boys died in the first sixteen minutes of the landing. As is well known, Bedford, Virginia took the highest casualties per capita of any community in the war. I was pleased to see the exit off this beach named the Rue de Bedford.
The Stall
Once the Allies successfully established the beachhead, they moved into the Bacoge country with hedgerows that grew on the field boundaries. The French resistance had tried to warn the Allies that these hedgerows would create natural defensive obstacles benefitting the Germans. But the Allies either didn’t understand their significance or disregarded the intelligence. In any event, the troops were unprepared.
The hedgerows were thick, matted vegetation to fence in the livestock, and there was a trench at the bottom which created plenty of camouflage and cover for troops and their guns. Every time one hedgerow was taken, there was another defensive line behind it and this caused the Allied push to stall.
This was aptly displayed on the tour when we met a French farmer who took us to a field on his farm where five German 88 artillery guns were captured. Through an interpreter he told us that, while he was not born at the time of the invasion, he would relay what his uncle and father told him about the battle. This particular hedgerow was one of the scenes in the film “Band of Brothers” and the American platoon started at one corner of the field and moved down the hedgerow, capturing all five German 88 guns. I had read about the 88 artillery pieces in some of Ernest Hemingway’s dispatches from Normandy and these guns were feared by the Allied troops. Originally used as anti-aircraft guns, they were found highly adaptable as field artillery pieces and were easily disguised in the hedgerows. The Allies slogged it out in the Bacoge country for three weeks, falling behind in their invasion timetable. The troops devised ingenious field blades that they welded to the front of their tanks, which helped in moving through the hedgerow country.
Perhaps this is a good juncture to relay some of the sights we explored in Bayeux, where we lodged in the Hotel d’Argouges. The staff was impeccable and served us an excellent breakfast in the morning and a wonderful Happy Hour every evening.
The Bayeux Cathedral dated to the time of William the Conqueror, the victor in the battle of Hastings in 1066, a beautiful medieval cathedral that soared above the town. Bayeux was spared the devastation suffered by the rest of Normandy and was quite lovely.
I had heard that church attendance in Europe was nonexistent and all the famous cathedrals just served as tourist destinations. On Sunday morning I tested this proposition and the cathedral was packed with worshippers. I was there when the service closed and the cacophony of the bells was beautiful. Thinking that most of the congregation were tourists, I hung around and was pleasantly surprised that they were locals, as I saw them walk down the street and enter their flats wearing their Sunday best.
We also took the opportunity to view the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230 foot long embroidered chronicle of William the Conqueror’s cross-channel invasion of England. The tapestry told the story of Harold, who had taken an oath to support the coronation of his half-brother, William, after his father’s death. Instead he crowned himself and William built a fleet in Normandy, crossed the channel, and defeated Harold at Hastings. It was fascinating to see this thousand-year-old tapestry describing the battle, the oath, the ships sailing across the channel, the coats of mail being loaded on the ships, and the horses with smiles on their faces, happy to take part in the drama.
This is also a good time to describe our visit to Colleville-sur-Mer and the American cemetery located there. We had the coordinates to find the grave of Granville Payne, Latham Payne’s brother, who died after running over a land mine in a Jeep at St.-Lô. The cemetery was everything we expected and was immaculately kept. Granville’s resting place reflected the gravity of his sacrifice and it meant a lot to all of us to remember a Warrenton boy who gave his all. Dad remembered Granville as a teenager and his brother, Latham, was Dad’s best man at his wedding and our next door neighbor all those years growing up on Lees Ridge Road.
The average age of the GIs buried at Colleville-sur-Mer was 23 and 9,387 Americans are interred there on the bluff above Omaha Beach.
I could not help relaying to Pierre a story I remembered about the cemetery. I asked if Charles De Galle was revered in France.
He replied, “He was regarded as a great liberator of the French people, but as a political figure, not so much.”
I then felt secure in relating that in the 1950’s when John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, he requested an audience with the French president De Galle. The French president in a fit of nationalism had ordered all non-French individuals out of the country. Secretary Dulles told De Galle that President Eisenhower requested a clarification, “Did the order include exhuming all of the remains of the American GIs buried at Colleville-sur-Mer?”
Charles De Galle withdrew the order.
The Breakout
In one of my favorite remarks from our guide, Pierre, he relayed that after three weeks of slogging through the Bacoge, “events evolved.”
The Allies could replace their casualties, the Germans could not. By June 30th the British objective, the city of Caen, fell. Then the port of Cherbourg was cut off, and finally on July 5th the strategic city of St.-Lô was taken.
The Allies started to move and General Bradley and Field Marshall Montgomery started to see an opportunity. If the British pressed from the North and Patton swung to the South, the Germans could be encircled in an envelope, so the Allied strategy changed to take advantage of the opportunity.
The Corridor of Death
By August 16th the Allies had 150,000 German troops encircled in what was known as the Falaise Pocket and Hitler finally ordered the first retreat of his armies.
The pocket shrunk to a corridor known to posterity as the Corridor of Death, only 3 miles wide. In that area the remaining 50,000 German troops that had already not escaped attempted a breakout near Hill 262.
A brave Polish armored unit near Chambois had sealed the Falaise gap and was attacked on both their rear and front by the Panzer units attempting the breakout.
One of the most moving sights was the ford over the Dives River, a stream really, where the entire German army retreated, clogging the little country road with abandoned equipment and dead horses and men.
At this point the censors of RSM US Foundation may see fit to strike the following passage from a family publication. It was said that the ground turned white from the maggots coming out of the shallow graves. Then the sky turned black with the flies produced from the maggots.
It was hard to visualize the suffering while viewing the beautiful Normandy countryside from Hill 262 spread out before us. What a beautiful place to end this epic trip.
Pierre said that historians view the battle of the Falaise Gap as a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. The 100,000 German solders that escaped would later show up at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. But the war was over in France, where the enemy only fought short rear guard actions that did not impede the Allied advance.
The scenery at Hill 262 made me yearn for the hills of Fauquier County and our pilgrimage to Normandy drew to a close. Thank you, RSM US Foundation, for making these memories for the Pearson family possible.
The American Dream
PILGRIMAGE TO NORMANDY Pearson’s Relive D-Day Thanks to RSM US Foundation
Thanks to the RSM US Foundation and its essay contest “Pursue Your Passion,” our third-generation nephew, son, and grandson, Hunter Pearson, won the prize. It’s true Dad had tried to get to Normandy twice before. September 11, 2001 grounded his flight to Europe. On the second try Mom’s health started to fail and the trip again was cancelled. My brother and I revisited taking the trip time and time again, but never got past the talk stage. But with the contest prize money in hand there was no excuse and this third try was a charm for Dad’s dream.
He was stationed with the 15th Air Force in the Italian campaign and flew 50 highly dangerous missions over Europe from May 1944 to August 1944 as a left waist gunner on a B17 bomber. On June 6, 1944 his mission record shows the target was a marshalling yard in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The crew knew something was up because bomber command had sent up everything that would fly that morning, and he remembered the sky was dark with planes heading to their targets. When the crew returned that evening they were given the news that the invasion of Europe was on.
Our guides emphasized that one of the singular reasons for success on D-Day was the overwhelming superiority of aerial support. The battle for the skies was over and the bombing campaigns prior to D-Day played a great part in the victory at Normandy. Dad’s targets over places like the Polesti, Romania oil fields destroyed a large part of the Nazi war machine and its efforts to resupply planes, tanks, and other mobile units with critical petroleum supplies.
Our guides were honored to have a World War II veteran on the tour and a soldier who had served in the European theater on D-Day. They said that in their four years of conducting tours throughout Normandy, they had yet to guide a World War II veteran to the D-Day sites. I liked their comment that they didn’t know what was worse, “participating in the day to day slog through Normandy, spending the night in a foxhole, or returning to base and safety at night in your bunk knowing you’d have to do the same thing again the next morning.” In 1944, at 18, Dad was stationed in the square middle of the bomber armed with a 50 caliber machine gun. The Wehrmacht instructed their fighter pilots to strafe the bomber through his open window where it could do the most damage to the plane. As Hunter related in his essay, he is a true American hero, and at 92 he was in a condition to fully enjoy this tour.
The Tour Participants
There were ten of us on the tour. The guest of honor, Harvey Pearson; our first cousin, Linda McClelland; my brother, Dennis Pearson, whose family scored a 100% attendance; his wife, Miriam Pearson; daughter, Rebecca Pearson; and son, Hunter Pearson, the famous essay winner. Brian Hoysa represented my sister’s family, and I, Gary Pearson, was the eldest son. James and Renee Pearson, our first cousins from Lavonia, Georgia, rounded out the group.
So, with the generosity afforded by the RSM US Foundation, Hunter and Dad booked the Normandy tour through the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, from September 12 to September 20, 2017. The rest of us piled on and arrived at Charles De Galle airport and boarded the tour bus with 25 other souls bound for Normandy.
Our guides, Stephane Lamache, “Tour Manager”, and Pierre-Samuel Natanson, “Battlefield Guide”, would be with us the whole tour and deserve accolades for the wonderful service the Pearsons received.
What follows is an attempted brief synopsis of our journey through Normandy, the epic events of D-Day, and the aftermath of the invasion through France.
Where, When, and How
German intelligence knew an invasion was imminent. After all, three million troops were stationed in the British Isles and they weren’t there just for sightseeing. In preparation for the inevitable, in late 1942 the Germans started construction over what they called “the Atlantic Wall” along the Atlantic coast from Norway to Spain. Not one massive line of concrete, but a series of strong points making the most of the natural defenses hugging the coast.
How would the Allies penetrate these defenses? They had learned a few lessons on what not to do. The failure of the commando raid at Dieppe was one example. In 1942, British forces conducted a raid on the port of Dieppe and most of the forces were killed or captured. Invasion of any heavily defended port was doomed to disaster. The beach had to be packed sand, not a rocky coast where equipment could get bogged down. This seemed to indicate the Allies would try for the Calais sector, close to England, and consequently the Atlantic Wall was heavily fortified there. Normandy seemed to rise in the planning stage with its intermittent sandy beaches, its potential for surprise because of its distance from England, and the fact that its defenses were still in the construction phase and not yet complete. Then there was the when factor to consider. There had to be a full moon for the paratroopers, favorable tides and stable weather for the landing craft.
The Germans monitored the weather daily, the Allies hourly, and on June 4th the meteorologists informed the Allied high command that a break in the front was approaching on June 6th. The next window would be toward the latter end of July and Ike knew any further delay would sap morale. The order was given.
A surprise of sorts was achieved. Rommel was in Germany and most of the German brass could not imagine the invasion would occur under these weather conditions. The ships, planes, and men moved toward their staging positions.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
The British and Canadian Sectors
There was no better place to start than the Pegasus Bridge that spans the Orne River. The Bridge was taken by surprise, with just one casualty. The three British Horsa gliders stopped within yards of the bridge entrance and this key objective was taken without a fight. It would not be so easy for some of the other sectors on the longest day. The British and Canadian flanks were secure with the taking of the Pegasus Bridge, but the hard work for the frontal assault would be through Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches. Today there are many vacation homes on the British and Canadian sectors but those beaches came under heavy fire resulting in heavy casualties. One surprise for me was the statistic that the Canadians in the ratio of their population when compared to the other Allied countries took the highest casualties.
The Commonwealth cemeteries were laid out next to the field hospitals and are cared for by the English and Canadian governments. The thought was to create a garden like the internees would know in their native countries, and the grounds are beautiful, remote, and peaceful. Each tombstone is etched with a legend chosen by the decedent’s family. Another highlight on the day’s tour was the artificial harbor at Arromanches, known as Mulberry Harbor. Churchill backed the project, which entailed filling barges with concrete and sinking them off the beach to create an artificial harbor for the ships to unload badly needed supplies. The capture of ports would come later and these artificial harbors were crucial for the success of the invasion.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Utah Beach and the Paratrooper Landing Zones
The next day would bring exploration of the sites captured and held by the paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd Airborne. To seize bridges and crossroads, the Allies had invested resources in creating paratrooper units to land behind the lines to hold strategic areas and then link up with the forces coming from the beach.
The Allies had been impressed by what they thought were successful operations by German units in the battle for the island of Crete, but what they didn’t know was that the Germans sustained high casualties in that battle and had given up on creating new paratrooper units. The technology to guide a parachute had not yet developed and there was a high probability the landings could not be concentrated.
The drop zones were missed and the units were scattered. This, however, may have contributed to the success of their mission because the Germans got reports of landings from all over the area and were confused about the ultimate strategy of the invasion.
One unforeseen success of this operation was the ambush at Chateau de Bernaville of the highest-ranking German commander in Normandy on the night before the invasion. Thinking that his communications trailer would be more secure if it was separate from his comfortable lodging at the Chateau, he concealed the trailer in the woods. When the first reports filtered in, he drove from the Chateau straight into an ambush set up by the paratroopers and was killed. This delayed counterattacks the next day when the Germans did not know that he had died and there was no one in charge.
The heroics of the paratroopers at the bridge approaching La Fiere was a worthwhile stop where it was explained how the troops stopped five German tanks that tried to destroy a bridge needed to move the Allied forces inland. It is hard to imagine the ferocity of the fighting there overlooking this bucolic scene.
Then the towns of Ste-Marie-du Mont, taken by the 101st Airborne, and the tale of the 82nd Airborne at Ste-Mère-Eglise, where the parachute still hangs from the church steeple, were riveting, as well as the museum with its restored C-47 aircraft.
Eisenhower was asked what three weapons won the war. He replied, “The Jeep, the bazooka, and the C-47,” being the workhorse aircraft, which I always thought was a surprising choice.
The stained glass window in the chapel at Ste-Mère-Eglise, showing the descending paratroopers, was very moving. All throughout the square you could still see the pockmarks on the buildings from the shells and bullets that were shot that night.
The guides emphasized that the area behind Utah Beach was marshy and the Germans had flooded the area so it was imperative the paratroopers take and hold the exits from the beach, which they did.
At Utah Beach the heroics of Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the President, were recounted. The troops missed their landing zones by half a mile and the decision had to be made whether to fight back to the planned landing zone and not confuse the expected reinforcements of the second wave. General Roosevelt gave the command, “The war starts here,” and there was no delay in moving off the beach and making their original objective.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Pointe du Hoc
The fighting for Pointe du Hoc would not be as easy as the frontal assault on Utah Beach. Pointe du Hoc was located between Utah and Omaha Beach and was a narrow, elevated peninsula that jutted into the ocean with cliffs of 250 feet above the water. From this vantage point you could easily observe Utah and Omaha Beach and it was critical that the guns located there be neutralized for the safety of the invasion fleet. A squadron of 500 Army Rangers was assigned the task of scaling the cliffs, capturing this German strong point and neutralizing the guns thereon. The plan was to shoot grappling hooks to catch the cliff’s edge and then scale the cliffs under heavy fire from the machine guns above. This was the most heavily fortified position we saw on the tour, with the narrow peninsula covered with concrete pillboxes and, at the very tip of the peninsula, a heavily fortified observation post looking out over the open ocean. With casualties of fifty percent, the Rangers took the position, but found none of the guns that intelligence said were located there. The Germans had instead moved the guns inland a short distance and had substituted logs in their place where aerial reconnaissance would mistake them for the real thing. Shortly after the capture of Pointe du Hoc, a patrol was sent out and found the five naval guns and destroyed the trigger mechanism so they could not be reused.
German Panzer units counterattacked the small Ranger force, but they held their ground.
Historians in hindsight counted the Ranger effort as a futile one because the reputed guns on the site were not there. But as Pierre astutely observed, the Germans wanted this position because they could see the entire battlefield from Pointe du Hoc. The position could serve the Germans as a central brain system to launch an organized counterattack and the Rangers never let this happen. In that light, their heroic effort was a success.
The Longest Day, June 6th, 1944
Omaha Beach
It is difficult to describe the ferocious fighting and the Allies’ effort that occurred at Omaha Beach. The only comparison I can make is the Confederate General Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, which did not succeed, and the invasion force at Omaha Beach, which did succeed. Both were fortuitous events in the history of the American experience. There were three exits off Omaha Beach and high cliffs in between those exits. We visited the exit at St. Laurent-sur-Mer, the seawall where the American force was pinned down all morning a mere 100 yards from heavily fortified German positions. All morning the troops could not advance because of the murderous fire raining down from above. General Bradley, from his command ship, considered a re-embarkation of the invasion force because of the stall. He reconsidered when he saw the battleship Frankfurt that had disobeyed orders to come close into the beach making headway with its artillery barrage. Then, as Pierre again so astutely stated, events started to evolve. At the Lieutenant and Captain level, American officers on the beach used their training to improvise, so envied by the British High Command, and started to find weaknesses in the German defenses. In some places they gained positions on the ridge overlooking the beach. Slowly the troops moved off the beach but never reached their goals for the day. It truly was one of the most heroic efforts by any of the Allied forces on the first day.
I liked Pierre’s observation that you wanted experienced units, but not too experienced, because then the experienced units would be too cautious. The divisions picked for the first wave on Omaha were the 1st Division, the Big Red One, and the 29th Division, the Blue and the Gray. The first American division had experience in North Africa and Sicily. The 29th Division, comprising units from Maryland and Virginia, called up from the National Guard, had never experienced combat. Having visited the D-Day Memorial at Bedford, I was anxious to see where they landed. I will never forget seeing a pillbox that would catch the Bedford Boys in a crossfire. Nineteen Bedford Boys died in the first sixteen minutes of the landing. As is well known, Bedford, Virginia took the highest casualties per capita of any community in the war. I was pleased to see the exit off this beach named the Rue de Bedford.
The Stall
Once the Allies successfully established the beachhead, they moved into the Bacoge country with hedgerows that grew on the field boundaries. The French resistance had tried to warn the Allies that these hedgerows would create natural defensive obstacles benefitting the Germans. But the Allies either didn’t understand their significance or disregarded the intelligence. In any event, the troops were unprepared.
The hedgerows were thick, matted vegetation to fence in the livestock, and there was a trench at the bottom which created plenty of camouflage and cover for troops and their guns. Every time one hedgerow was taken, there was another defensive line behind it and this caused the Allied push to stall.
This was aptly displayed on the tour when we met a French farmer who took us to a field on his farm where five German 88 artillery guns were captured. Through an interpreter he told us that, while he was not born at the time of the invasion, he would relay what his uncle and father told him about the battle. This particular hedgerow was one of the scenes in the film “Band of Brothers” and the American platoon started at one corner of the field and moved down the hedgerow, capturing all five German 88 guns. I had read about the 88 artillery pieces in some of Ernest Hemingway’s dispatches from Normandy and these guns were feared by the Allied troops. Originally used as anti-aircraft guns, they were found highly adaptable as field artillery pieces and were easily disguised in the hedgerows. The Allies slogged it out in the Bacoge country for three weeks, falling behind in their invasion timetable. The troops devised ingenious field blades that they welded to the front of their tanks, which helped in moving through the hedgerow country.
Perhaps this is a good juncture to relay some of the sights we explored in Bayeux, where we lodged in the Hotel d’Argouges. The staff was impeccable and served us an excellent breakfast in the morning and a wonderful Happy Hour every evening.
The Bayeux Cathedral dated to the time of William the Conqueror, the victor in the battle of Hastings in 1066, a beautiful medieval cathedral that soared above the town. Bayeux was spared the devastation suffered by the rest of Normandy and was quite lovely.
I had heard that church attendance in Europe was nonexistent and all the famous cathedrals just served as tourist destinations. On Sunday morning I tested this proposition and the cathedral was packed with worshippers. I was there when the service closed and the cacophony of the bells was beautiful. Thinking that most of the congregation were tourists, I hung around and was pleasantly surprised that they were locals, as I saw them walk down the street and enter their flats wearing their Sunday best.
We also took the opportunity to view the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230 foot long embroidered chronicle of William the Conqueror’s cross-channel invasion of England. The tapestry told the story of Harold, who had taken an oath to support the coronation of his half-brother, William, after his father’s death. Instead he crowned himself and William built a fleet in Normandy, crossed the channel, and defeated Harold at Hastings. It was fascinating to see this thousand-year-old tapestry describing the battle, the oath, the ships sailing across the channel, the coats of mail being loaded on the ships, and the horses with smiles on their faces, happy to take part in the drama.
This is also a good time to describe our visit to Colleville-sur-Mer and the American cemetery located there. We had the coordinates to find the grave of Granville Payne, Latham Payne’s brother, who died after running over a land mine in a Jeep at St.-Lô. The cemetery was everything we expected and was immaculately kept. Granville’s resting place reflected the gravity of his sacrifice and it meant a lot to all of us to remember a Warrenton boy who gave his all. Dad remembered Granville as a teenager and his brother, Latham, was Dad’s best man at his wedding and our next door neighbor all those years growing up on Lees Ridge Road.
The average age of the GIs buried at Colleville-sur-Mer was 23 and 9,387 Americans are interred there on the bluff above Omaha Beach.
I could not help relaying to Pierre a story I remembered about the cemetery. I asked if Charles De Galle was revered in France.
He replied, “He was regarded as a great liberator of the French people, but as a political figure, not so much.”
I then felt secure in relating that in the 1950’s when John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, he requested an audience with the French president De Galle. The French president in a fit of nationalism had ordered all non-French individuals out of the country. Secretary Dulles told De Galle that President Eisenhower requested a clarification, “Did the order include exhuming all of the remains of the American GIs buried at Colleville-sur-Mer?”
Charles De Galle withdrew the order.
The Breakout
In one of my favorite remarks from our guide, Pierre, he relayed that after three weeks of slogging through the Bacoge, “events evolved.”
The Allies could replace their casualties, the Germans could not. By June 30th the British objective, the city of Caen, fell. Then the port of Cherbourg was cut off, and finally on July 5th the strategic city of St.-Lô was taken.
The Allies started to move and General Bradley and Field Marshall Montgomery started to see an opportunity. If the British pressed from the North and Patton swung to the South, the Germans could be encircled in an envelope, so the Allied strategy changed to take advantage of the opportunity.
The Corridor of Death
By August 16th the Allies had 150,000 German troops encircled in what was known as the Falaise Pocket and Hitler finally ordered the first retreat of his armies.
The pocket shrunk to a corridor known to posterity as the Corridor of Death, only 3 miles wide. In that area the remaining 50,000 German troops that had already not escaped attempted a breakout near Hill 262.
A brave Polish armored unit near Chambois had sealed the Falaise gap and was attacked on both their rear and front by the Panzer units attempting the breakout.
One of the most moving sights was the ford over the Dives River, a stream really, where the entire German army retreated, clogging the little country road with abandoned equipment and dead horses and men.
At this point the censors of RSM US Foundation may see fit to strike the following passage from a family publication. It was said that the ground turned white from the maggots coming out of the shallow graves. Then the sky turned black with the flies produced from the maggots.
It was hard to visualize the suffering while viewing the beautiful Normandy countryside from Hill 262 spread out before us. What a beautiful place to end this epic trip.
Pierre said that historians view the battle of the Falaise Gap as a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. The 100,000 German solders that escaped would later show up at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. But the war was over in France, where the enemy only fought short rear guard actions that did not impede the Allied advance.
The scenery at Hill 262 made me yearn for the hills of Fauquier County and our pilgrimage to Normandy drew to a close. Thank you, RSM US Foundation, for making these memories for the Pearson family possible.
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