Municipality of Vierville-sur-Mer
Municipal Information - Bulletin N°12 - June 2008 - "http://vierville.free.fr"
Our new municipal team quickly got to work. One of his first tasks was to designate his representatives in the various bodies of intermunicipal cooperation: community of municipalities, electrification union, drinking water supply, household waste collection and their treatment, school transport, cultural entertainment, use of European funds, departmental library.
These increasingly numerous, increasingly important structures carry within them a formidable germ: the distance of decision-making centers from the reality of the field and the life of the citizens who live there. This risk can be partly limited by municipal elected officials who are able to take responsibilities on the boards of directors of these groupings of municipalities. Our city council achieved this well by being directly involved in the offices of several boards of directors. Maybe it will be easier to be well informed to act better at the right time?
I like this notion of municipal team; in my opinion it is a space for pooling energies and skills. It promotes collective action, always more structured and fertile than individual action.
The team allows everyone to feel richer and richer, supported in their commitment, thanks to the debates it can generate. Over the months, it will thus be welded around its missions of managing communal life and taking into account collective interests to gradually establish its maturity.
We will need it to best carry out the development of the PLU, in the face of the multiple requirements imposed by the regulations of the "litoral law", the "territorial coherence scheme", classified sites and other remarkable spaces.
Committed to our values, we will have to highlight our conception of quality life in our village for our fellow citizens.
Good summer to all!
Jean-Marie Oxéant
The decisions of the Council
The Estimated Budget was voted on:
Operating expenses: 236,202
Operating revenue: 250,895
Investment expenses and revenues: 88,651
These forecasts are established without increasing local taxes allowing, among other things, the acquisition of a new lawn mower and the repair of a bell ringer. The council has planned with the financial and technical assistance of the SDEC to carry out underground work on the air networks located in the village (electricity and public lighting), including the disappearance of the old transformer building near the church.
In order to offer the opportunity to all the inhabitants of Vierville to meet, a friendship pot was organized on May 1 in the communal hall. More than one hundred and sixty people came to share this nice moment. Appointment is already made for 2009.
In the hope of seeing a sailing school reopen in Vierville, the city council has decided to make available to EOLIA, starting this summer, the field and hangar of the former mini golf. A qualified instructor will be able to welcome teenagers for introductory sailing courses.
The "tower" electrical station and the electrical wires of the town center that should disappear after the network erasure work planned for 2009
A bit of Vierville history: on June 6, American amphibious tanks were in large numbers on Vierville beach
The Americans had planned to land at low tide, from 6:30 a.m., 44 Sherman tanks from the 743rd tank battalion on Vierville beach (Gog Green and Dog White sectors). These were 32 amphibious tanks (to be dropped at sea from 8 LCT type landing barges), and 8 normal Sherman tanks and 4 bulldozer tanks (to be landed directly on the beach with 4 LCTs).
These tanks were to provide the support of their cannons to the 1000 soldiers of the 1st battalion of the 116th Regiment who landed at the same time from about thirty small landing barges type LCA and LCVP, and to the 250 sappers of the Engineering and the Navy (disembarked from 6 LCM type barges) responsible for clearing 4 corridors in the beach obstacles.
When the 8 LCTs commanded by Lieutenant Rockwell appeared 5500 meters from the shore around 5:00 a.m. (quote from Lt. Rocwell's report):
" it appeared that the sea would not be ideal for launching tanks. Before leaving Portland, the question had arisen for us of the possibility of having to continue to the beach if the sea was too strong for the launch. ....... the issue of the launch was finally left to the........ Captain Elder of the 743rd.
At 05:05, we contacted Captain Elder via the tank radio and we perfectly agreed that the 743rd tanks should not be thrown into the sea, but led directly ashore on the designated beaches. As a result, all ships turned 90° simultaneously at 05:40, and advanced towards the beach, the guide ship, ours, the LCT 535, touching the beach at 06:29. The others touched within the next 2 minutes. Despite fairly strong machine gun shots and higher calibers, all but one tanks were successfully dropped on their target ranges. All the ships successfully retreated, although 2 of them suffered direct blows and losses among the crews. Subsequently, ramps were lost following damage caused by shells to the lifting machinery... "
It should be noted that, at the other end of Omaha Beach, in Colleville, 32 other amphibious tanks were launched into the sea despite the bad weather and that most sank on the way, leaving the infantry units without artillery support.
As for the LCTs carrying normal tanks and tankdozers, one arrived 1 hour late on the beach of Vierville, 2 others were lost at sea, and the 4th deported by the current much further east.
Finally, out of the 44 tanks planned on our beach, about 35 arrived ashore, scattered over the 2km between Vierville and Saint-Laurent.
An amphibious tank with its floating skirt folded and deployed
The beach of Vierville on June 6 at around 7:00 a.m., we see 4 tanks at the edge of the water, in the backwater and in front of the pebble bank which is 250 meters from the descent of Vierville. We also distinguish obstacles (hedgehogs) on the sandbank
In these 2 photos, taken from the LCI 91 footbridge, we can see several amphibious tanks on the beach in the middle of the obstacles. It is about 7:30 a.m. on June 6, the smoke masks the views of the Germans, there are still no US infantry troops in this neighboring sector of the Richard and Philippe Marchal villas. The LCI 91 will be destroyed on site shortly after and will remain for several years as a wreck in the middle of the beach.
While the tanks came out of the barges, the German cannons of Vierville took the beach in a row. While Lieutenant Rockwell was removing his barge, he noticed 2 tanks hit. One of them was burning. The next 2, and others from the 743rd Battalion remained in the water while shooting with their machine guns and 75mm guns. The ship's sign. White, commander of the LCT 713, later told Rockwell: "The ramp was lowered, and the first tank launched. The water was very deep and as the tank left the ramp, it went directly to the bottom and did not move anymore. The tank leader ordered the abandonment and the entire crew was brought back on board the LCT with the help of a long assera thrown from the ship." The White sign backed up, moved laterally by 100m, and approached a second time. The last 3 tanks were able to get out of the water, and the LCT took a direct blow. The LCT 713 left with 3 sailors killed on board. He had to be towed to England.
The LCT 590 was also hit with men killed. The other 6 LCTs withdrew normally and were able to return to the anchorage area to be recharged in order to ensure their second mission planned at H+215 (10:05 a.m.) on Dog beaches.
Often the tactics of tanks were to stay in the water, and move forward with the rising tide. They were less noticed, pulling the turret out of the water, but risking being overwhelmed by a big wave.
Colonel John Upham, commander of the 743rd tank battalion, arrived on the heels of the first wave. He first remained a few hundred meters from the shore, driving his tanks by radio. When his LCT got closer around 8 a.m., he jumped overboard and swam to the beach to join his tanks. Still on foot, he directed their shots. A gunshot went through his right shoulder, but he refused medical attention. He met Private Charles Leveque and Corporal William Beckett who had abandoned their chariot with a broken caterpillar. Upham, always with his inert right arm, sent them to the pebble slope. Beckett commented: "He it was impossible to get the colonel out of his impassivity".
After the initial losses, around noon, at least twenty amphibious Sherman tanks were actually in action on Dog Green and Dog White. They shot many shells on the bunkers of the Vierville descent (it is enough to see the state of the bunkers in the photos of the time, and even today, to realize it) and on the machine gun nests in the cliffs. Some shot even when they were immobilized, caterpillars destroyed, sometimes pulling until they were submerged by the rising tide.
On the right the villa Hardelay, we distinguish on the boulevard de Cauvigny and on the beach about ten floats, around 12:30 p.m. on June 6, the sea is high and has begun to descend again. There are many bodies of American soldiers killed on the beach before the descent of Vierville and that the tide brought back under the dike.
Around 12:30 p.m., under Villa Richard, the wreck of the LCI 92 with half a dozen US tanks on the coastal road which is not bordered by a dike in 1944
They suffered more losses during the day, especially with the permanent fire of German field artillery camouflaged in the hedges near Formigny and Deux-Jumeaux. These shots gradually slowed down as their ammunition ran out
Some tanks first headed towards Saint-Laurent, the others grouping on the seafront just east of Vierville. After the destruction of the anti-tank wall in the afternoon and the clearing of the road, they were able to leave the beach and go up to Vierville in the evening. The road exit through Saint-laurent was only opened on June 7.
In total, a total of 23 tanks bivouaced in Vierville on the night of June 6 to 7. They then participated in advance to Grandcamp the next morning, some of them helping to clean up the last Germans scattered in the various districts of Vierville.
Household waste:
An exhibition will be held at the town hall on July 18 and 21 on the collection and recycling of household waste.
They are collected on Monday morning. An additional pickup is scheduled on Friday morning from June 23 to September 05.
Containers are available "Price Hunt" for the selective collection of glass, paper and plastic bottles. It is not a place to deposit garbage bags or other bulky objects, it is even forbidden to deposit anything outside the containers. The Green Brigades will finally be able to resume their surveillance service of the municipal territory; their help will be invaluable to us to encourage offenders to stop these casual, selfish and anti-citizen practices.
Our dog friends:
Pet dog, guard dog, hunting dog, our four-legged friends are faithful companions to whom a whole family is attached.
Stray dog, stray dog, threatening dog, barking dog, biting dog, "cooping" dog, our always four-legged friends are then a source of neighborhood conflict. Because poorly educated by their master, they become a source of nuisance.
We must also remind our fellow citizens who own these charming animals that they are fully responsible, civilly and criminally, for the consequences of all these nuisances, or even the dangers they cause to others.
The rambling of the dog on public roads or in the countryside, beyond the reach of the master's voice, is prohibited. Uninterrupted barking is not bearable. Public spaces are not "screws"; some owners have the delicacy to immediately remove any deposit from their animal.
Why don't they all do it?
And what about the lawn around children's games?
Practical information
"http://vierville.free.fr"
Town hall: Opening hours: Monday and Friday 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Tel.: 02.31.22.42.66 Fax: 02.31.21.38.57
Email: "mairie.viervillesurmer@wanadoo.fr"
Library on Monday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., at the City Hall, open to all and free.
La Poste: In Vierville: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.;
Mail lifts from Monday to Saturday at 9:00 a.m.
Cult:Mass in Vierville on Sundays at 10:00 am in July and August. Usual mass in Trévières on Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m.
Firefighters: Tel. 18 Gendarmerie: Tel. 17 or 0231225103 SAMU: Tel. 15
Diste disposal:
The Port en Bessin waste disposal facility is open on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., closed on Thursday and Sunday. Other waste disposal facilities are available in the West of Bessin.
Household Waste:removal every Monday morning, and in July and August additional passage on Friday morning
D.Day Omaha Museum open from 1er April to November 11, and on request of groups, off-season
Contact: Mr. Brissard - Tel.: 02.31.21.71.80 - Fax: 02.31.21.71.80
OMAHA-BEACH BEDFORD Association (VA)
Subject: duty of Memory and reception of Americans visiting our sites.
President: Bertrand LE JEMTEL, tel.: 02 31 10 03 59 www.omahabeach-bedford.com
Association Charles de Bellaigue: humanitarian action in Benin - Tel: 02 31 51 74 13
E-mail: "asso.charlesdebellaigue@voilà.fr" Website: "http://charles.de.bellaigue.free.fr"
Association Beach Friends
President: Dominique GUERNIER tel. 02 31 22 60 41
All year round: Tennis Club Viervillais, 1 outdoor court, rue Pavée
Registration: go in front of the court, first door to the left of the grocery store.
Association Vierville Educational Leisure
Contact: Mrs. FONTAINE, tel 08 72 34 98 16. September to June, manual activities on Tuesdays from 2:15 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Old Combatants
Contact: Henri GUEDON, tel. 02.31.22.49.83
Vierville-St-Laurent Hunting Society: Contact: René LENOURICHEL tel.: 02.31.22.40.27