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November 12-17, 2009 // Operation Desert Eagle

My horse might have had a name but I was in the desert still the same.
Operation Desert Eagle was a resounding success. I was able to speak to Harry’s two surviving sisters—Angeline Hancock and Edna Rae or Rasky as Harry called her—and I also had the pleasure of interviewing Harry’s daughter Sharon, and Harry’s sister-in-law Olive. Olive, in addition to being Harry’s sister-in-law because she is Melba’s sister, Harry and Olive were in-laws because Bernard (C.B.), Harry’s brother, was married to Olive. Double Trouble!

I spent a lot of time in the Cemetery documenting Harry’s final resting place. On Sunday morning I held a little ceremony where I placed a red stone from Omaha beach and some of the soil from Opheusden on his head stone. It was a touching and unexpected moment of closure for me. Although I have a lot of work left, a lot of love still to give to this project, and one final act of doing to perform, I have come close to “Finding Harry.”

October 12, 2009 // Ramsbury, England

This morning Dave and I caught the Underground from Kensington High Street Olympia station to Waterloo where we boarded a train to Farnbourough. Ian Gardner, author of the internationally acclaimed book Tonight We Die as Men, picked us up and wisked us off down the M4 to Ramsbury where the men from third battalion lived and trained during the time prior to Operation Overlord (D-Day) and prior to Operation Market Garden.

Our first stop was in Parliament Peace, a manor house in the center of town that was for reserved for officers. The house is privately owned by the Lady Rosemary Pinches. She isn’t officially a lady in the sense of some sort of royalty but visiting her did feel rather stately. She is a very intelligent bookseller specializing in books on heraldry and on geneology. She had us in for a “spot of tea”. I had some very delicious water. Then we had the honor of visiting her book shop located in old coach house.

Ian then drove us around Ramsbury, and we visited the field behind Parliament Peace were most of third batallions enlisted and noncoms had Nisseen huts. We also saw Adelborne where the Band of Brothers aka Easy Co. and Second Battalion was stationed.

Off to Hungerford for a pasty and a coke. (kinda like a veggie pot pie you can hold in your hand.) We ate it by the side of the river that runs through Hungerford. We sat on a bench that had a stone next to it. On the stone there was an inscription. It said the bench was in honor of James Talmage, Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ who was born in Hungerford. I find it interesting because while at BYU I was in the library looking for old chemistry books for visual research. One of the old books I got used to belong to Elder Talmage. He signed the inside front cover and dated it. Now here I am doing research again and I am in his old town.

With fully bellies we headed out to Littlecote House. I had no idea what was in store for us but this house was no house it was an estate house. The kind that was built on old roman ruins and then expanded over the years. It was Jane Austin land for sure.

One of Ian’s mates, Bruce Steggles who works at Littlecote was so nice and showed us around. In the main hall the great table was over 400 years old. Solid oak that takes 20 plus men to move it. Henry the VIII courted Jane Seymore in this house and was used as a main Cromwellian stronghold during the English civil war. The reason we went to see the house was its role as 506th Headquarters durning WWII. They even have a small WWII museum in the basement area of the house. After a few hours and the grand tour of Littlecote House Ian drove us back to Farnbourogh where we dined at a great little pub restaurant.

Ian was very generous and took us to the train station where we caught a train back to London and then we took the Tube to High Kensington St. As it turns out the High Kensington St. station is about a half mile from our hotel so we hiked it home. Another amazing day on this trip and a nice end to Operation EuroGo.

October 11, 2009 // Caen, Paris, London

Travel Day
Take the 10:08 to Paris Gare de St. Lazare
Taxis to Gare du Nord
EuroStar Chunnel Express to London
Taxi to Hilton Olympia

Oct 10, 2009 // Caen France

07:30 up and at em to do laundry at the local Lavamatic. Being a Saturday we thought every one else would be hitting the Laundromat as well so we got up really early. It appears that Saturday morning is a sleep in morning for everyone but the Americans with dirty clothes. At least in Caen that is. Laundry didn’t take too long although it is a bit expensive, just like everything else is around here. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Oh and of course, today—the day we planned to mostly stay in to catch up on things—the sun is out and it isn’t raining.

After breakfast Dave went out French plate hunting for his wife Carrie, while I sat down at the computer to work on downloading, sorting and backing-up our media from the previous few days. I also took the time to post a few new notes to the blog and created three short rough videos and posted those to Vimeo and my me.com gallery.

They aren’t anything special but it was good to get the videos out there for people to see. As expected most everything I have created so far is a travel log rather than anything storytelling but pure exploration, documentation and collecting raw content is what this trip is really all about.
I now have a better understanding of how important pre-interviews and location scouting is to serious documentary work. Even with all my experience in film and production I definitely still fall into the category of “novice” when it comes to cinematography and documentary film making.

The more I try new things I realize how much I learn from doing rather than simply reading. However I don’t mean to disparage the theoretical knowledge, I find it indespensible as I sort out my practical experiances. I am just confident I learn best by study and action not just by study alone.

Our afternoon was spent walking all over Caen in search of the main castle. It took us several miles of back alleys and city streets to finally find the castle but we eventually assailed its impressive walls. (Now as I look on google maps, it is so funny how close we were when we took a wrong turn.)

The Château de Caen was built by circa 1060 by William the Conquerer. It is an impressive edifice. For years it was a strategic point in the 100 years war and it withstood may seiges; until modern warfare caught up with it and in 1944 it was severely damaged from bombing raids. The signs didn’t say if it was the Allies or the Germans but I am curious and I will look it up later. (It was the Allies softening up the Germans to take the town. It had been a D-Day objective but the town wasn’t taken until early July.) It did rain pretty good once while we were in the streets looking for the castle and then once again while we were at the castle.

Inside the castle but not in the main keep was a collection of Normandie Museums one of which was a Beaux Arts museum. They had an impressive painting collection which Dave and I toured for about 45 minutes. They even had an original Monet, not his best work ever but a nice piece non-the-less. (As if I could even be trusted to evaluate Monet. All I know is it didn’t seem as special as his other pieces I have seen.)

We had a nice dinner at our creperie and then back to the hotel to pick up the car to return it to the Hertz rental station. A feat we accomplished without the use of the GPS. Yay us! We walked back to the hotel from the Hertz office, it wasn’t more than a mile, for some more work and then bed.

October 9, 2009 // Normandy, France

Pattiserie for breakfast again.
No GPS for awhile, and we are in the middle of the city with no idea how to get back. Oh good, it finally picks up a signal. Off we go! (Oh, did I mention it is raining?)

09:00 The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial over looking Omaha Beach is an experience I didn’t expect. Security at the entrance to the memorial building with metal detectors and all. The lower half was a very well done museum exhibit on the massiveness and neccesity of D-Day. I didn’t know it was there and it was so well done it truly honors the memories of all who served.

We toured the cemetery where over 10,500 service men are buried in neat clean rows upon rows and then walked the path down to Omaha Beach. Standing on the beach was just as moving a moment as standing in the cemetery. The beach was silent save for the unrelenting peaceful pounding of the waves crashing on the dark sand. It’s a different experience to stand somewhere you know hundreds of lives were lost. I picked up a blood red stone to remind me of the sacrifice of those men.

13:00 We head off to find the Placd du la Republic where Harry was awarded the Silver Star on June 20, 1944. We found it just fine. The statue in the center erected to commemorate WWI vets in the town center was still there. The area is a little run down and sadly doesn’t really feel all that special anymore.

The rest of the day we visited the Dead Man’s Corner Museum in Saint Côme-du-Mont, and the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mére-Eglise.

October 8, 2009 // Caen, France

Up at 9:00 AM
Big surprise, it’s raining again, a lot.
10:30 Walked to the local patissere. Quiche for Dave, cossaint and pain du chocolate for me. Did some computer work till about 12:00. Took a taxi to Hertz Car Rental which had moved and was closed for lunch. Walked back to the hotel, and then back again to Hertz again for time killing and exercise. Rented the car and took GPS back roads route to Arromanches, D-Day Museum. Every where we went I wanted to stop and learn about the history of the places, churches, towers and the awesome castle. We really felt like we were taking the “road less traveled” to get to where we were going but since half of this trip was about the journey we were excited about everything we were seeing.

Arromanches is really neat place but also a bit of a tourist trap. We stepped into a cafe and noticed she had hamburgers. She said she did but they were frozen. What in the world! Frozen hamburgers in the seat of all great gastronomy! Ah well, we ordered them anyway. Ya. It was school lunch all over again. The frites were good though.

After visiting the museum and the beach we drove to the American Cemetery of Normandy, which was closed. Drove back to Caen on the main highway after some deft back road action due to the GPS believing there were on ramps where there weren’t any. Funnily enough the tourists in the car in front of us appeared to be having the same GPS failure as well.

18:30 Planned the next day

20:00 Hit the streets in search of a fine dinner. We found a Monoprix but it was closed. We then tried our luck at a creperie Au P’tit Chef. Great choice. I had the especial du jour Crepe, cheese, egg, spicy sausage, and rattatoullie. Yep, I et me some ratatouille. Tasty, tasty goodness.

22:00 almost time for bed.

October 7, 2009 // Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Paris, Caen

Long travel day.
Returned the rental car in Eindhoven.
Eindhoven train to Amsterdam Centraal.
Thalys high speed train to Paris.
Amsterdam to Brussels was regular speed. Brussels to Paris was warp speed 300 km/h. Also had high speed Internet. I love the trains in the EU.

Taxi from Paris Gare du Norde to Paris Gare de Saint Lazare

17:45 Train from Paris to Caen.
Incredible country side views. At dusk it really starts to rain.

Taxi from Gare du Caen to the Holiday Inn at Caen.
Dinner at the restaurant attached to the Holiday Inn.

Crash out. Travel is exhausting, which is weird because you don’t really do anything.