Your day at the beach because of their day at the beach

[Patrick Chadwick]

A week ago my wife and I were on the beach. That beach. Omaha, no longer bloody, but peaceful.



The first photo shows the beach looking down from the American Memorial Cemetery. Access down the slope has now been closed off, but it would present a hard walk to come up, even in peaceful conditions.



The second photo shows the view along the beach. The edge of the grass marks a shingle step - one cannot call it a cliff, it's only a few feet high. To the right there are several hundred yards of open beach at low tide. To the left there are another couple of hundred yards of grass with a wide marshy strip before you even get to the start of the slope in the first photo. And all that way the troops had no cover whatsoever, other than the shingle step.

The headland in the background is the Pointe du Hoc. Artillery fire from the emplacements up there would have enfiladed the beach with devastating results, which was why it had to be taken out by the Rangers.

As the last stage of our Normandy holiday, after studying the relics and information in the museums, it was very sobering to look at this view and try to imagine how it was on D-Day.