Commentary
I have been lingering in and about Port-en-Bessin-Huppain, Normandy, these last few days.
The little fishing village and its surrounding towns on the English Channel (“La Manche,” “the sleeve” en français) is delightfully picturesque in that rugged, elemental way that proceeds from the collision of tempestuous sea and commanding headland.
Expansive fields of corn and other crops are ripening fast, orderly in their serried, midsummer ranks.
Orange-red poppies punctuate the grassy, flower-strewn verge and complicate the landscape, heavy with age and history.
Poppies are for remembrance, and there’s a lot to remember in these parts.
Nearly 80 years ago, in the opening minutes of June 6, 1944, the greatest amphibious assault in history began when a clutch of six gliders, navigating only by stopwatch, were cut loose over the Norman coastline and floated down upon the Bénouville Bridge over the Caen Canal and the Ranville Bridge over the Orne River less than a mile away….