Normandy American Cemetery: A Place of Pilgrimage
Dr. Eleanor W. Hayes · June 6, 2016
On a bluff above Omaha Beach, where the English Channel meets the Norman coast, lie 9,388 American servicemen. The Normandy American Cemetery is built on the site of the first American cemetery established on European soil after D-Day, on 8 June 1944.
The ground itself
The 172 acres were granted by France in perpetuity. Rows of white marble headstones — Latin crosses and Stars of David — face west, toward home. A semicircular garden on the memorial's east side carries the names of 1,557 of the missing.
Who rests here
Most of the dead fell in the landings of 6 June 1944 and the fighting that followed across Normandy. Among them are the men of the first waves at Omaha and Utah, paratroopers dropped behind the lines, and the Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc.
Visiting
The cemetery lies east of Colleville-sur-Mer, northwest of Bayeux. See our Normandy cemetery page for directions and details. It is, by a wide margin, the most visited of the overseas cemeteries — and for many families, a pilgrimage made once in a lifetime.
Dr. Eleanor W. Hayes — Lead Historian & Editor
A historian of the two World Wars, Eleanor oversees the archive's editorial standards and the accuracy of its casualty records.