Pointe du Hoc

How Bombs Brought Forth Art

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View from the cliff face

Though we can read books about warfare, we will never know what it was like to be showered with bombs. Growing up in the early 21st century, I have lead a privileged life that has been safe in my own country. In history classes, a picture was painted of families fleeing to the London Tube tunnels during bombing and fearing to return to a pile of rubble that used to be their home. I could not begin to comprehend the sheer power that these bombs harnessed until I walked the grounds of Pointe du Hoc.

 

Example of a bomb crater at Pointe du Hoc

This site is the most striking thing we’ve visited on our journey thus far. Pointe du Hoc was the highest point between the American landings on Utah and Omaha beaches. Though the area had been fortified by the Germans, the United States Army Ranger Assault Group attacked and captured Pointe du Hoc by scaling the cliffs from the beach. The Rangers accomplished this by using borrowed ladders from the London Fire Brigade and grappling hooks while under fire. I finally saw the damage that was caused by bombs dropped by the allied forces during the pre invasion strikes. All around me were gouges in the ground, some 20-30 feet deep. To fully understand the impact, I walked into a crater and I almost felt like I was in another world.

 

The bottom of the crater was a new ecosystem, one that was magical and seemed almost safe. Among the yellow flowering bushes, vibrant green lichen, and chirping birds, I found a surprise. As the bombs ripped through this land, they created art and new life. The impact had ripped away the substantial concrete blocks, leaving the metal support spikes, or rebars, exposed. This created an organic, found art experience. These clumps of metal spikes reached up towards the opening of the crater in an almost snake-like manner and they seemed a logical part of the earth they were protruding from.

Metal spikes exposed after bombing

These spikes didn’t seem to be a result of a bomb impact, they seemed to be slithering out of the ground to rejoin and intertwine with the new plants growing. Seeing something that is usually man made become something that could interpreted as many organic forms was an inspiring moment.

 

Trying to comprehend the power of bombs is impossible until you’ve seen the damage and walked the path of destruction.

More rebar detail

Regardless of the sources that I’ve read for our spring class or for other history classes, I didn’t understand the reality. Beyond understanding the power of bombing, I never expected to find something so beautiful as a bi-product. The juxtaposition of the craters to the flower accented spike art was a true sight to behold. Art is always something that is unexpected and finding beauty in the midst of destruction was the most unexpected of all.  As an arts major, I find myself inspired by the organic art that I discovered at Pointe du Hoc and I plan to explore the idea of recreating this experience in an arts series.

 

I Cannot Plant Flowers of Memory

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Headstone in British Cemetery, Normandy, France.

“They laid him where he fell, far from me, where I cannot plant flowers of memory.”

— Epitaph in British Cemetery, Normandy, France

 

While in Bayeaux and Normandy, I have seen thousands of grave markers. Many are inscribed with names, but many can only acknowledge that there is an unknown soldier lying beneath it. Boys as young as fourteen and men as old as forty-six are buried side-by-side. Some markers signify that the bodies could not be disentangled or identified other than by dental records. Thousands of markers are missing, along with the bodies that still haven’t been found. An additional and often overlooked loss is the near-20,000 French citizens who perished during their “liberation.” Allied and Axis soldiers and civilians alike suffered the same consequence of war: the finality of death.

Headstone for two German soldiers in La Cambe German Cemetery, Normandy, France.

While military cemeteries aren’t unusual in the United States, battlefields post-dating the Civil War are. To visit English, German, and American cemeteries and then also visit the beaches where many of them died heightened my sense of the sorrow and shock their comrades and families must have felt. The Utah and Omaha beaches would have been one of the first experiences abroad for many American soldiers, and for many of them the last. Their family members would never know the sight of the bluffs, the texture of the sand, or the clearness of the water.

Bomb craters at La Pointe du Hoc, a landing point for the Allies on D-Day.

Perhaps the lack of WWII-era battlegrounds in the United States allowed Americans to over-inflate the political victory of the Allied effort and discount the true extent of loss felt by Europe (and in the Pacific, for that matter). It was the European civilians that endured strategic bombing campaigns in England, France, and Germany; that rebuilt their towns after arbitrary military forces destroyed them; that lived under occupation and oppression; that experienced food and clothing shortages; that witnessed the brutality of war. To this day, craters and scorch marks can still be seen in French villages. The skeletons of artificial harbors remain along the beaches. German bunkers are still embedded in cliffs that overlook beachfront cottages.

Remains of an artificial harbor used during the invasion at Gold Beach, Normandy, France.

At best, Americans have the oral history of their grandfathers or great-grandfathers. WWII is remembered as the good, patriotic war where the Nazis were defeated and all of Europe was saved by the American GI hero. French memory is far more sobering. The physical sites from WWII lend themselves to a different kind of memory, one that had no choice but to endure the war. The sense of loss is not contained just to cemeteries but is found also in cliffs and churches and beaches and villages. Americans will be unable to comprehend the scale and sacrifice of the D-Day invasion, and the total cost of the war, without visiting the place where it happened.