USS Normandy Visits Namesake Region

CHERBOURG, 50, FRANCE

11.18.2022

Story by Petty Officer 2nd Class Malachi Lakey 

Carrier Strike Group 12

A brilliant orange sunrise greeted the sailors that emerged from the lower decks of the Navy warship USS Normandy to prepare for the ship’s arrival in Cherbourg, France, a village of approximately 30,000 nestled along the coast of the Cotenin Peninsula, in the historic region of Normandy.
The 9,800-ton ship last visited its namesake region in 2012. Most of Normandy’s 300-person crew had never set foot in Normandy, let alone France. The excitement that normally accompanies a port visit began to bubble up as the coastal fog burned off, and the Sailors got their first view of the old A-frame houses and low, tree-covered hills that surrounded the harbor. Everyone standing outside the skin of the ship spent the previous evening pressing their dress blues, squaring up their ribbons, and layering thick black polish on their shoes in preparation to man the rails marking the 567 feet of the ship’s perimeter, as the ship was slowly eased into the harbor by French tugs. The crew stood tall and proud at parade rest, a ceremonially silent position; still, hushed voices were heard as the ship passed by the ruins of old port fortifications that looked like castles. On the bridge, junior officers’ eyes were glued to the windows, and their ears attuned to port radio chatter. An hour later, the call was given to single up all lines and the 33-year-old cruiser was safely moored in Cite de la Mer - The City of the Sea. Welcome to Normandie, Normandy.

USS Normandy was laid down in Bath, Maine in 1987 and commissioned as a U.S. Navy warship in 1989. It is the first U.S. ship to be named in remembrance of the Allied actions during the June 6th beach landings on D-Day, and the several-months-long military campaign that followed to liberate France, after nearly four years of Nazi occupation. The scale of the beach landings is almost unimaginable: 160,000 Allied soldiers, among them Americans, Britons, Canadians, and Free Frenchmen; and 195,000 Allied naval personnel, among them the aforementioned, along with sailors from Norway, Poland, Greece, and the Netherlands, took part in the D-Day invasion, called Operation OVERLORD. It was the largest amphibious assault in history. It also resulted in some of the most staggering casualty numbers in history. According to the British historian Max Hastings:

The Allies achieved [their victory in Normandy] at the cost of 209,672 casualties, 36,976 of these killed. British and Canadian losses amounted to two-thirds those suffered by the Americans.

French civilians also suffered immense losses on the peninsula, as their homes and neighborhoods became battlegrounds. Some 13,000-19,000 lives were lost among the local population during the Debarquement and the ensuing Normandy Campaign.
Any visit by USS Normandy to its namesake region is laden with the gravity of what occurred on the beaches of Northern France 78 years ago. The crew of the ship, and U.S. Sixth Fleet, took full advantage of this powerful opportunity to honor the service and sacrifice of the Allies, planning tours of both the Utah and Omaha beachheads, historical sites, organizing a memorial ceremony in concert with the U.S. State Department and the French Navy, and giving Sailors the chance to interact with locals on liberty.
Following an hour-long bus ride from Cherbourg, through increasingly narrow streets bounded by stone walls and vine-woven trellises, Capt. Gary Chase, commanding officer of USS Normandy, four junior officers, and a twenty-strong color guard arrived at Utah beach. Gray clouds hovered over the beach as American and French sailors formed neat ranks in the well-kept grass on either side of a marble monument dedicated to the lives lost during the landings. The rest of the ceremony participants arrived, one-by-one, and solemnly found their seats. They were all in uniform, if military, or appropriately dignified attire, if a member of the civil service. An American Sailor and a French sailor, each holding their country’s respective flag, stood silently before the monument, as the speakers took their turn at the podium to address the audience. They all offered words of gratitude and remembrance for the men who met their end fighting for the liberation of France, and the preservation of Europe. They attested to the long history of partnership and cooperation between France and the United States. When it was Capt. Chase’s turn to address the crowd, he asked them to meditate on what victory in the Normandy Campaign meant:

What a different world this could have been,
if Allied forces didn’t conduct the assault.
What a different world this could have been,
if the French Resistance would have surrendered to tyranny.
What a different world this could have been,
if it were not for the unity of Allied action…
Our alliance, then and now, continues to represent the indomitable human spirit to overcome tyranny and pursue liberty.

When everyone had spoken, and silence had fallen over the ceremony, the honored guests were given wreaths of red roses, Queen Anne lace, and tinted blue marigolds to lay at the base of the monument. The guests stepped forward in unison and placed their wreaths—one each from: the Naval Attaché for Western France, Capt. Henry Winkler; Commanding Officer of USS Normandy Capt. Gary Chase; the Préfet Maritime de le Manche, Rear Adm. Mark Veran; the Préfet de le Manche François Flahaut; the U.S. Consul at Rennes, France, Elizabeth Webster; Isabelle Bouyer-Maupas, a member of a local family whose history is tied to the landings; and Charles de Vallavielle, the Mayor of Ste.-Marie-du-Mont, the village in which the monument resides.
A lone, plaintive trumpet played taps as the dignitaries saluted, or placed their hand over their heart. With a final moment of silence, the ceremony ended, and the crowd began to disperse. American and French sailors broke ranks and, with their duty done, began to mingle with their counterparts and talk of their own service.
Above the monument, two Sailors still had a tradition to enact. Senior Chief Kayla Johnsen and Petty Officer 2nd Class Dashaun Cox stood on a ridge overlooking Utah Beach. It was overcast and the brittle, gray-green grass on the dunes below rustled in the wind. Behind them was a statue of two other Sailors—one French, one American—their proportions much larger than life. The seaside air had oxidized the brass statues, staining their bulky bodies a pale green.
The rest of the ceremonial party found their way up the dirt track to the top of the hill and the reenlisting officers took their positions in front of their charges. Now the two Sailors had an audience. Senior Chief Johnsen raised her hand and began to speak:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to regulation and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so help me God.

Petty Officer Cox raised his hand and spoke the same. Behind each Sailor’s oath, you could hear the unceasing sound of the tide—the same tide, the same oath, heard and sworn by the American troops who fought so bravely on that beach almost 80 years ago.
Back on the ship, Senior Chief Johnsen, a native of Great Falls, MT, stated that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reenlist on the beaches of Normandy. “Being able to reenlist at Utah Beach, a place where we lost so many Americans, was a beautiful way to honor their sacrifice by continuing my service.”
Petty Officer Cox, a native of Elizabeth City, NC, was of like mind: “I chose to reenlist in Normandy due to the deep history here. I wanted to pay my respects to all that lost their lives on that beach. And it’s our ship’s namesake, most people don’t get an opportunity like that.”
The following day, Normandy’s crew boarded another bus, this one bound for the Normandy American Cemetery.
The cemetery, one of 26 run by the American Battle Monuments Commission, lies above Omaha Beach, the site of the bloodiest fighting during the landings and the subsequent campaign to wrest Normandy from Nazi control. Two days after Allied transport ships poured troops onto the shore, a temporary burial ground was established. The burial ground was moved upland throughout the course of the war, and in 1956, the Normandy American Cemetery was dedicated and opened to the public. The land is owned by the French, but its use is given freely to offer peace to the 9,388 American troops that are interred there.
More than a million people visit the site every year to pay homage, but USS Normandy’s visit in November was out of season, and the crew had the cemetery almost entirely to themselves, save for a few French high school students on a field trip. The sky, again, was full of churning clouds that would open up periodically to let beaming sunrays through before fusing together and threatening rain.
Scott Desjardins, the superintendent of the cemetery, met the crew at the gates. Desjardins, a U.S. Army veteran of French- and French-Canadian descent, was the perfect steward for the cemetery. He would be their guide.
Before touring the grounds, Desjardins gave the crew some perspective:

These landing boats were not meant for the open seas. They were meant for the swamps of the American South, but they could be manufactured cheaply, and in great numbers, and so they were chosen for the purpose. The back left corner of the boat was where you wanted to be. You were slightly shielded from the spray and whipping of the tide, and from the vomit of the soldiers in the front, who had the worst of it. Most of these men had not seen combat before, and they had the two-hour ride from the troop transport ship in the stamped steel swamp boats to the beachhead to think about what awaited them.

Normandy’s Sailors moved as a group through the cemetery, passing row after row of completely uniform Latin crosses and Stars of David, both hewn from white Italian marble. The cemetery is kept in impeccable condition, and is arranged at random: generals are next to privates; seamen next to lieutenants. There is nothing to distract the pilgrim from their thoughts. One stone—one sacrifice.
Every day at 1600, the staff of the cemetery lowers two flags from two-story flagpoles. Normandy’s crew gathers between the poles and waits. Somehow, the already silent cemetery becomes quieter still. The first flag is lowered, slowly. The second flag is lowered, slowly. The Sailors are in civilian attire, but they find themselves at attention as the second flag is being folded.
The bus ride back to Cherbourg gave the crew a chance to further interpret what they had seen, and to think about how they would spend their last night ashore. After thanking the driver—Merci!—they walked across the broad concrete pier back to the ship. That same pier was rebuilt by the Americans after being destroyed by the Nazis during the war, to deny the Allies the only deep-water port in the region. It was rebuilt well. The rebar-reinforced concrete looked like it had dried yesterday, a relatively fresh contribution to the relationship between the United States and its oldest ally.
After a week experiencing Normandy’s culture, and paying respects to the past, it was time for the crew to leave France. Schedules hold. The weather was only slightly more favorable than it had been during the week, as the sea and anchor detail cast off the last of the mooring lines holding the ship fast to the pier. Au revoir, Normandie.

• Date Taken: 11.18.2022
• Date Posted: 12.06.2022 12:08
• Story ID: 434617
• Location: CHERBOURG, 50, FR