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Tks all, back to the Martinville photos in my previous post, another passage from the link....



As can be seen in my photos, I saw no evidence of those excavations on my visit.

One thing notable about the Normandy battlefields (heck, almost the whole area was a battlefield at one point or another) is the lack of craters and trenches evident today, at least from the roads. Surprising considering the many intense areas of shelling by the big guns of battleships, the regular field artillery of both sides, and carpet bombing by the RAF and USAAF. You don't see any of that, perhaps they were all filled in during the decades following to restore these productive agricultural fields.

Point of comparison; one area where the cratering does survive is around the shattered artillery bunkers up on Point-du-Hoc. Beneath the long grass the terrain is pockmarked by craters 10 or 15 feet deep and maybe thirty feet across. So many that there is no unscarred terrain remaining, and the footpaths weave around the edges of the shell craters.





There exists limited access below ground at these bunkers, drab and ugly inside...



Sorta related, this steel thimble was on display at a roadside museum above Omaha Beach. Not sure what it was. The little white sign said "Armour Cloche of German 60 Tonnes", observation post maybe?

Suffice to say, if anyone was inside that thing on 6/6/1944, they were prob'ly having a very bad day.



Ironically, that's an EU flag on that pole.