The American Cemetery

More than 10,000 servicemen are buried here. It is American ground, a gift from the French to America in thanks for the sacrifice that saved France and Europe. In fact even the vegetation is from North America, including the grass and flowers. 

There is a rather moving exposition before entering the cemetery that tells the stories of several servicemen who served during the invasion. Several of the students were emotional as they read the quotes and looked at the artifacts, watched the movie about the heroes. This is the reflecting pool from the visitor's center looking out over Omaha Beach and some of the exhibits. 

This is one of two major cemeteries in Normandy. While British soldiers were buried where they fell, Americans either were returned home or buried in the cemeteries here. About 65-70% of the casualties were sent home, which makes the number of graves here even more startling. 

It overlooks Omaha Beach where so many died. But we noticed even still many of those buried here did not die on invasion day but rather in the months after. How sad to think they may have made it through such bloody days only to die soon after. More than 3,000 alone died in the landings. 

There is a beautiful monument here that commemorates those who fell. At the top of the hour they played a beautiful rendition of the American anthem on the carillon and then taps.  It was incredibly moving. 

Behind the memorial is another garden with the names of those who did not have remains to bury. There are also unknown gravestones sprinkled among the crosses and stars of David. 

Froggy told us about a potential misstep that may have increased the casualties. The leaders knew they would face high casualties and let their men have a final supper of steak, doughnuts, fries and other heavy foods the night before the invasion. The next morning when they got on the flat bottomed landing boats in the windy water many were seasick and unable to fight. 

Many did not make it to the shore because of their seasickness, the shock of seeing their brothers fall, the shelling from the machine guns, or drowned while loaded down with 80 pounds of gear. If you reached the beach you had to run about 3 football fields while dodging the bullets, artillery shells, the mines and barbed wire. They had to reach cover at the base of the cliff before they could even begin to fight the Germans. If the first wave only 10% of the soldiers reached the defense wall. After the first 3 hours Eisenhower considered dropping Omaha and focusing on Utah. Instead they decided to resume bombing even though soldiers were already on the ground. They finally cleared the beach about noon that day.