Normandy: D-Day Plus 80 Years

Omaha Beach, May 2024 
Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France

After Aldbourne, East Anglia, we caught a (huge) ferry at Portsmouth and crossed the channel to France, arriving at Ouistreham, port of the city of Caen, late in the evening. While we experienced a few swells that gave us some unsteady moments on ship, it was an easy crossing—a world away from what the soldiers endured as they made their way to Normandy eighty years ago. In 1944, the men were packed onto ships off Britain’s coast where they waited for the skies to clear so the mission could commence. The delayed departure on heaving seas induced seasickness among many, making them more anxious for the invasion to get underway so they could get their boots on dry land.

Departing Portsmouth, UK

The Pointe du Hoc promontory, with the 110-foot cliffs scaled by the 1st Infantry Division——the Big Red One—to neutralize German guns

The Normandy coast is still relatively undeveloped—lush, rolling hills dotted with farms amid small towns and villages. Standing at the section of the beach the Allies codenamed Omaha, the vista is largely the same as that Allied soldiers saw as they climbed out of their Higgins boats and slogged their way forward—miles of unbroken shoreline, Pointe du Hoc six miles to the west, the cliff the Rangers scaled to take out German guns. Learn more about the boys of Pointe du Hoc, as Ronald Reagan called them, here.

Movies about the landings—“The Longest Day” and "Saving Private Ryan” among others—don’t begin to convey the vastness of the enterprise. Allied soldiers were stretched across fifty miles of coastline. imagine the volume of ships and landing craft required to bring that many men and that much materiel to the shore. Moreover, getting the initial wave of troops to the beach was only the first step: they then had to be fed and supplied for the long push across France, and ultimately, into the German Reich. Opening up, then protecting that supply line required some genius project management—three dimensional chess, as they say—at a scale that’s simply staggering.

The German bunker system that remains to this day on Omaha Beach was extensive and formidable. It was manned by soldiers very happy to be in France. The Normandy coast, our guide told us, was a pretty sweet posting compared to the Russian front, where many of these men had served. Some had been seriously wounded there and once they recovered, were redeployed to what was considered a fairly low-stress job—sitting in a concrete bunker, weapon in hand, watching the sea. When the Allies landed, these hardened German troops fiercely defended Omaha Beach, the Allies suffering 3600 casualties, making it the bloodiest sector of the invasion.

Network of concrete German bunkers remain steps from the sand on Omaha Beach.

Multi-room bunker embedded into the landscape

Musée du Débarquement, Utah Beach

The Americans’ goal was to link the five-mile stretch of Omaha Beach with the British to the east at Gold Beach and the Americans landing to the west at Utah Beach. Only then could troops move inland. The wonderful Musée du Débarquement—the D-Day museum at Utah Beach—details each step of the invasion and while our time there was limited, a visitor could easily spend a whole day studying the exhibits, which include video interviews with soldiers who bravely climbed onto the sand that day.

Le Roosevelt sandwich shop across from the D-Day Museum at Utah Beach

Across from the museum sits a cafe called Le Roosevelt—named for Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Junior was the highest ranking soldier and the oldest (at 56!) to storm Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. He had already served in Tunisia and landed with troops in Sicily, and initially was refused permission to participate in the D-Day landings. Hobbled by arthritis, he came ashore with a cane and a gun, only because he had pleaded with his superiors that he needed to stay with and direct his soldiers. Roosevelt survived D-Day, but suffered a fatal heart attack five weeks later.

This cafe was but one example of how present the war remains to this day in the minds of the French, especially in this region of the country. Their gratitude is palpable, a recognition of the sacrifice Allied soldiers made on their behalf. I won’t soon forget the warmth and kinds words they expressed to us as we traveled.

Our day ended with a visit to the American Cemetery at Normandy, where our group placed a wreath in honor of the war dead. We also brought single roses and I placed mine on the grave of a B-17 crew member—so young and so brave, who gave his life so that tyranny would not prevail. To stand in this place, an endless field of headstones representing so many beloved sons, brothers, husbands—reveals a collective courage and commitment we would do well to cultivate in ourselves today.

The American Cemetery Normandy 

Next up: Sainte-Mère-Église, just a few miles inland from Utah Beach, where Allied paratroopers heralded the coming invasion.