After visiting Utah beach, we visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha beach.

The scenes at Omaha were captured in the beginning scenes of the film  ‘Saving Private Ryan’, showing that the landings at Omaha were met with fierce resistance, resulting in heavy casualties and leading to the ominous nickname of ‘Bloody Omaha’.

Just to note – I am not a military historian, so this is a very brief outline to provide some context to anyone who wants to visit the area. The museums are quite comprehensive and go into more detail if you want to know more!

Date: Tuesday, 6 June 1944

Time: 06:30 (same time as the landings at Utah)

What happened:

Troops from the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions landed on Omaha, the most heavily defended of the assault areas. Preliminary Allied air and naval bombardments failed to knock out strong defence points along the coast and the Americans had difficulties clearing the beach obstacles. The experienced German 352nd Infantry Division was taking part in anti-invasion training in the area and was able to reinforce coastal defence units. Despite these challenges, the Americans were able to gain a small foothold on the beach by the end of the day.

Army Rangers also scaled the 35m high cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, situated between the Utah and Omaha beaches.

Places to visit today:

Pointe du Hoc

The American Battle Monuments Commission run the visitors centre and manage the site at Pointe du Hoc. More information can be found here

The walk out to see the cliffs as well as the remains of the German bunkers are well worth seeing.

Omaha beach

The Overlord Museum has quite a lot of information about the whole D Day operation.

The stillness of the modern beach at Omaha is in stark contrast to the chaos on D Day

Likewise, is the stillness at the enormous US cemetery at Colleville sur Mere. Quite an emotional moment even if you aren’t American. More info is here

More about the Omaha Beach and surrounding area can be found on the Normandie Tourism site.

Next time we’ll look at British led beach at Gold.

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