Battlefields
October 2005 saw almost half of the Upper Fifth surrender most of their half term for the Battlefields Trip, a long-established and thought-provoking tour of the D-Day landing sites and other places involved in the Allied reconquest of Europe in the Summer of 1944.
The trip was designed to help us gain greater understanding of the invasion and the events immediately following it, to help us with our coursework; it certainly did much more than that.
The first stop was Omaha landing beach, immortalised by the film Saving Private Ryan: a site of appalling slaughter, it was now disturbingly beautiful. From there we moved up to the top of the cliffs, where the German pillboxes would have been, to visit the American Cemetery.
Confronted with the bright symmetry of thousands of small white crosses overlooking the beach, I don’t think anyone could help but be moved. Some graves that simply carried the sobering epithet “Here lies a soldier, known but to God” – perhaps one of the cruellest sentences I know. Equally awful, if not so visually arresting, were the British and German war cemeteries: one a mass grave of white marble, the other a mass grave of black stone.
Other highlights included the town of Sainte Mère Eglise and several coastal gun emplacements, and as some relief from the bleakness of World War II, a visit to see the Bayeaux Tapestry. Everyone had a really enjoyable time, even, or perhaps especially, the staff. For a trip whose subject matter was seemingly so grim, it included times of great fun. I personally am unsure whether the experience weakened or affirmed my belief in humanity; that, I think, you must find out for yourself.
Alexander Hurst