EXPERIENCE D-DAY BEACHES

Overview

A visit to the beaches, where the greatest invasion force of all time landed, is a must for anyone visiting Normandy’s north coast. The 50-miles of Atlantic coast north of Bayeau - stretching from Utah Beach in the west to Sword Beach in the east - are dotted with WWII museums, monuments, cemeteries, and battle remains left in tribute to the courage of British, Canadian, and American armies that successfully carried out the largest military operation in history, D-Day. It was these tranquil beaches, on a rainy week in early June 1944, that the Allies finally gained a foothold in France; from this moment, Nazi Europe was destined to collapse. Today this piece of coastline, which includes Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah beaches, is collectively known as the D-Day Beaches.

D-Day

American General Dwight Eisenhower was put in charge of planning for Operation Overlord, with British General Bernard Montgomery to take over once the landings were successful.

The task was daunting, as General Rommel had prepared by ordering Nazi troops to turn Normandy’s coastline into a death trap: beach obstacles, land mines, artillery batteries and barbed wire were all laid across the countryside.

For D-Day, the Allies divided the 50-mile coastline into five sectors, code named from west to east: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The Americans were to land primarily on the western fronts of Utah and Omaha, while the British were tasked with capturing the eastern beaches, Gold and Sword. The Canadian forces were to lead at Juno.

In addition to the amphibious landings, an extensive aerial bombardment was planned. In total, roughly 160,000 troops landed on the Normandy Beaches on June 6, 1944 and 11,000 planes and 4,000 ships were used in the attack.

While today D-Day is considered a great success in the greater context of WWII, the day itself was a mixed bag. Some beaches were captured relatively easily while others were entrenched in long, bloody battles with devastating casualties.

The Allied goal was to secure all five beaches and link its forces together by the end of the day. While each force secured their respective beaches, heavy German resistance delayed a unification until June 12th.

D-Day Beaches

The D-Day beaches are spread out throughout Normandy’s coastline and can be seen in a day in one comprehensive tour. There are over 20 important monuments, museums, and military remnants in the region.

The Americans were assigned to Omaha Beach and today, the Normandy American cemetery overlooks the beachfront, with a haunting memorial, visitor’s center and excellent museum.

For those planning to visit, it’s a great idea to book a local tour, as they can give you much more information of the military planning, battles, and key events that occurred. Normandy is notoriously rainy all year round, so pack layers and a raincoat.

If you are visiting in June, Normandy marks the remembrance of D-Day with a number of ceremonies and reenactment groups. The French people in Calvados remember the significance of D-Day and always celebrate the anniversary of France’s liberation.

Things to See and Do

Visitors can tour the approximately 50-mile stretch of sand and stop in a number of museums, memorials and cemeteries that are spread out alongside the coastline. More than 30 memorials, cemeteries, and museums, which range from coastal batteries to museums dedicated to underwater military finds, are spread out along this stretch of coast. There are few places in the world that have a more concentrated (or more sobering) selection of sites than Normandy’s D-Day Beaches.

Visitors can tour the area and stop by a number of museums, memorials and cemeteries that are spread out alongside the coastline either with a tour or on their own. To fully appreciate the area and all its history, we recommend taking a guided tour, which will offer in-depth insight into the landmarks, monuments, etc. If you're driving yourself, we recommend starting in the town of Arromanches, which hosts two museums that help provide context for the battle sites. The American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer and the Pointe-du-Hoc bomb craters are also especially moving. Also in Colleville-sur-Mer, visit the Overlord Museum, where you’ll find more than 10,000 pieces of matériel and 35 military vehicles that are showcased in D-Day dioramas around a great hall.

Travel along the coast to the jagged lime cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc. A cross honors a group of American Rangers who scaled the cliffs using hooks to get at the gun emplacements. Across the landscape here, you’ll see markings of giant craters showing where the bombs fell. Farther along the Cotentin Peninsula is Utah Beach, where the 4th U.S. Infantry Division landed at 6:30am. A U.S. monument commemorates their heroism.

Check out the seaside resort of Arromanches-les-Bains where in June of 1944, two mammoth prefabricated ports known as Mulberry Harbors were towed across the Channel and sunk offshore to create a breakwater and a harbor inside its protection, where long floating roads were assembled to offload tanks and equipment. “Victory could not have been achieved without it,” Eisenhower later said. Arromaches’s Plage Musée du Débarquement is where you can explore the D-Day landings through maps, models, a film, photos, and a diorama of the landing beaches.

Also worth a visit is Musée Gold Beach, where you’ll discover the heroism of Britain’s RAF and Royal Navy and the meticulous Allied coordination that went into the D-Day landings.

The Centre Juno Beach, of particular interest to Canadian visitors, highlights Canada’s entire war efforts, with particular focus on the Battle of the Atlantic and the march through Germany. Here you’ll find a family-friendly series of exhibits, hands-on presentations, and films looking at the Canadian reparations and contributions to the allied efforts through personal stories and interactive experiences. This center offers a unique Canadian perspective and includes an exhibit on Canada today. Just outside the museum is a memorial to the Canadians that died on D-Day, their names inscribed simply on blue towers. Walk towards the beach to see the sculpture with the words to Paul Verlaine’s poem “Chanson d’Automme”: this was the code the BBC used to alert the French Resistance on June 5. From April through October, guides lead tours of the remains of the Atlantic Wall, exploring its bunkers and the tunnels leading to the underground command post. You can see damaged bunkers on the beach independently.

At the western end of the beach, look for the double-armed Cross of Lorraine, marking the site where Charles de Gaulle made a brief return to France on June 14, 1944, after his self-imposed exile in England upon the fall of France in 1940. At the other end of town, a Sherman Bold tank recovered in 1970 from more than a mile out at sea stands as a monument to the Canadian Hussars.

Utah Beach and the Museum of the Landings is where you will discover a former bunker of the Atlantic Wall that has been incorporated into the Museum of the Landings. You can see only one of the only six remaining original B26 Marauder bombers and an LVT-2 Water Buffalo, the landing craft used to offload supplies for the cargo ships off the coast. The exhibits are especially well designed to illustrate not just the operations at Utah Beach, but the entire Operation Overlord, and some pieces of equipment are accompanied by videos demonstrating how they worked. Among the several monuments here is Milestone 00, marking the beginning of Liberty Road, and commemorating the route of Allied forces from the Normandy beaches to Bastogne, Belgium.

The nearby Crisbecq Battery Museum is a semi-open-air museum set in 21 German bunkers that were part of the Atlantic Wall guarding Utah Beach. They were (and are) linked by a network of trenches, and some of the bunkers contain dioramas showing life in the battery.

Recounting the Normandy Campaign from the Allied troop preparations to D-Day on June 6th, 1944 and the liberation of Paris on August 25th, the 2,300-square-meter exhibition, called Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy, includes military equipment used on the landing beaches, as well as an excellent film "Normandy 44, a Decisive Victory in the West." This film, combined with the exhibits, puts Normandy's place in deciding the outcome of the war in the perspective of operations elsewhere, but deals mainly with Normandy's pivotal role.

While in Bayeux, be sure to see its best-known tourist attraction, the UNESCO inscribed Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th-century masterpiece of medieval embroidery depicting the story of the conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror.