Started off the morning by driving to Omaha beach. To get the full effect of the beach, it is best to visit during low tide. That way you can see how far the tide goes out and what the American soldiers had to get through to get to shore. The tides can go as high as 25 feet and average around 18 feet. It is hard to imagine the beach full of obstacles to either puncture the ships or kill the soldiers. It is said that the streams you can see on the beach during low tide were completely red from blood during D Day. The tide really does come all the way to the walkway along the beach.

From the beaches that the American’s arrived on, we made our way to the American Cemetery. There are thousands of American soldiers buried here. There is a museum before visiting the cemetery that explains a lot about June 6th, 1944. The cemetery is above the beaches of the Channel. We also stopped at a German cemetery that had thousands of soldiers as well. The majority of the tombstones didn’t contain a name because most of the lost lives were never identified.

Pointe du Hoc might have been the most interesting since you could still see giant craters in the ground where bombs fell. There were still a couple of German bunkers you could go in. The pictures of the ocean show how steep the cliffs were that the American soldiers climbed to get to shore. Since the cliffs were so steep, an attack wasn’t expected to come from the water.

Our last stop was to Arromanches-les-Bains. This is where the British landed. To make a harbor, they sank a lot of old ships and concrete out in water to protect their ships. Once the harbor was made, they brought in huge metal ramps to drive tons of equipment off of the boats and on to land. You can still see some of the remnants in the water.