D-Day Landing Beaches, Normandy

On 6 June 1944 the Allies launched Operation Overlord, landing American troops at Utah and Omaha, British forces at Gold and Sword and Canadian forces at Juno, after airborne landings overnight. At Omaha the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions met strong defences on the bluffs, and the Americans suffered around 2,400 casualties there on the first day. About five kilometres to the west, men of the US 2nd Ranger Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder climbed the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to neutralise a German artillery position; the guns had been moved inland, and the Rangers found and disabled them, then held the headland for two days at heavy cost.

Off Omaha, one of the two artificial Mulberry harbours was built in the days after the landings to supply the advancing armies. The American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, covering 172.5 acres, is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, which also took over care of Pointe du Hoc in 1979. A visitor centre at the cemetery, dedicated on 6 June 2007, explains the landings and the Battle of Normandy that followed.

The beaches are also everyday seaside places, with families, walkers, horse riders and sand yachts on the sand outside the anniversary period. Villages along the coast fly the flags of the Allied nations, and each June the commemorations of 6 June bring veterans' families, re-enactors and official ceremonies. Inland, Bayeux and the Bessin countryside are known for dairy farming, cider and Calvados apple brandy.