Mon 25 May 2009
It dawned on me while I was posting the other day about the World War II Monument in Washington, DC, that I had never written anything on our blog about the American World War II Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. This is despite that fact that I visited it three times during our time in France and that I used it favorably in comparison with the monument in DC. Today, Memorial Day, seems like a good time to rectify that oversight.
Most Americans that venture out to the northwest of Paris eventually wind up visiting this cemetery. It is an extraordinary place to visit. It overlooks one of the beaches that served as a turning point, where the allies began the invasion of Europe that would lead to the end of the war. It is a calming place, well-kept, and highlighted by a large memorial and a small chapel. It is also the final resting place of more than 9,000 soldiers and the site of the final reminders of more than 1,500 more whose bodies were never recovered. The majority of those buried here died in the two-week period starting with D-Day, June 6, 1944.
A view across the cemetery toward the English Channel
You can stand at the edge of the cemetery, look out on the beach and imagine the chaos of D-Day. It is easy to see why the Allied casualty numbers were so high in the beginning. The Germans were occupying higher ground and the beach provides little place to hide.
There are a few places I visited where I can say I felt history, and this is one of those places. Actually, the whole coastline in this part of Normandy felt this way to me, from Arromanches to the east to Pointe du Hoc to the west.
Stereogram of the beautiful, but awkwardly named “Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves”
photos originally from March 28, 2004
One Response to “ The Normandy American Cemetery ”
Trackbacks & Pingbacks:
[...] subjects from different angles, sometimes at very different times. The picture I posted from the Normandy American Cemetery the other day was made this way: The two shots are were taken at two different distances from the [...]