Omaha Beach

The beginning of the cemetary at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. There are 10,625 American soldiers buried here.

Along with our good friends, Corine & Robert, Mindy and I ventured north to tour the Normandy region of France this past weekend and take in the spectacular scenery and natural beauty offered by the region. We also wanted to view the D-Day beaches as the invasion of France by the allied troops in June of 1944 as been well chronicled in a variety of popular books, movies, and television series. It was time to view this hallowed ground for ourselves.

Omaha Beach is the where the main Amercian assaulting force landed during the invasion and where the heaviest fighting occured. Think about the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan and you should have a pretty good idea of what was going on. The hike from the beach to the top of the bluffs is quite a hike and trying to imagine what it would be like in the middle of a full scale battle is quite an interesting exercise.

One of the things that America does extremely well is honouring those who sacrificed their lives in the life of duty. We witnessed this first hand last year when we visited Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and the memorial and visitor center at Omaha Beach did not dissapoint. Everything is first class and the grounds are beautifully mannicured. We toured the visitor center and watched a couple of videos on the men who fought for freedom. It was truly inspiring and a beautiful tribute.

Robert, Mindy, and Corine strol past the rows of crosses.

The memorial at Omaha Beach.

Behind the memorial is a wall with all the names of the missing soldiers whose bodies were nevered recovered from the Normandy invasion.

The view from the bluffs overlooking Omaha beach. This is where the Germans troops would have been firing from.

The rocky shoreline at high tide of Omaha Beach.

Mindy perched upon a remaining chunk of concrete left over from the artificial harbour that was created to land equipement.