It made me think of this cool old post, a fortification near you
I've been in that bunker! Spent 3 days in the Normandy area in 2006, we stayed in Caen. We had a two day semi-private WWII tour of the area. It was just myself, two friends, an Australian guy, and our tour guide. Our guide was awesome, and she knew everything about the area, the battles, the equipment used, and she took us to all kinds of awesome spots throughout the region, many look similar to the one in this picture, and they were both on the coastline and scattered about the countryside as well. We stopped at this particular one for wine and cheese one day and hung out for a bit. I have some various pictures of that trip at home. Lots of pictures of us hanging out in bunkers, look outs, gun placements, sherman tanks, and of course Omaha and Utah beaches. If you are remotely interested in WWII and are ever in France it's definitely worth it. Hire a smaller guide so you get a more private tour (probably less expensive too), instead of the big mega-bus ones for old people.
One of the guys on the trip was an American like myself, but has an extremely German sounding last name. Every time he'd pick up a gun or any of the equipment we'd be all "LOOK OUT YANKS!" But it is kind of hard not to sit in some of those places and not try to imagine what it must have been like on D Day. Seeing boats dotting the horizon, planes bombing and doing straffing runs, thousands of soldiers storming the beach. We sat on Omaha Beach one day for awhile, just kind of hard to imagine what took place there. It's just been so long now there's really no signs of it, and the gun placements are not as big and plentiful as the movies portray (they face DOWN the beach, not towards the water) It was just a beautiful beach, people riding horses, people out for walks, us just chilling with a glass of wine. Hard to really fathom what happened there... until you go to the German and US cemetaries in the area and see the thousands of tombstones.Did you guys pretend to be soldiers waiting for the Allies?
I was about 8 when my grandfather took me to the Los Angeles National Cemetery for the first time. While we were walking through the rows, I heard his voice catch and say something to the effect of "they left their chairs strewn behind them". Thisimmediately transfigured into something similar to this in my mind. In fact, when I saw that installation on tumblr, I was immediately hit strongly with that particular memory. I can't empathize the stark authoritative lines for some reason; chaos is more understandable, more relate-able. For all I know, my grandpa was probably commenting on actual chairs left behind at someone's graveside and my defining turning point was accidental all along.Hard to really fathom what happened there... until you go to the German and US cemetaries in the area and see the thousands of tombstones.