D-Day Landing Beaches, Normandy, 1944

Les Plages du Débarquement, Normandie, 1944, are better known in English as the D Day Landing Beaches in Normandy.
The five beaches that make up the D Day landings are (from west to east) Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword and they stretch along the Normandy coast from Isigny-sur-Mer in the west to Ouistreham in the east, spanning a total distance of 75 kilometers.
It is possible to visit the most prominent sights in a single day with the use of a car. And along the way there plenty of significant things to visit. Every small seaside town and village seems to have a monument to the landings often in the form of a preserved tank or a pillbox.
The remains of the floating Mulberry Harbour, an essential temporary harbour to allow ships to dock and unload men and equipment, can still be seen on the beach at Arromanches, defensive pillboxes showing the scars of battle, on the cliffs at Point du Hoc, where US Rangers scaled the cliffs with ropes and grappling hooks to engage the enemy, Pegasus Bridge on the Caen canal, the first building to be liberated on the day prior to the landings, the first Liberty Way marker at KM0, are just a few examples of the fascinating history of the start of the liberation of Europe.
There are personal poignant reminders of the human cost too, Rowe Road (pictured), named in honour of Private J T Rowe, just one of the thousands who made the …

My first visit to Bayeux (and to the city of Battle in East Essex in England) several years ago had to do with the Battle of Hastings, often regarded by historians to be the single most influencial battle in human history, which started from here in 1066.

This visit to Bayeux and to the Omaha Beach nearby in February 2020 had to do with the Battle of Normandy in 1944.

I took Bus Line 70 from the Bayeux train station to St. Laurent-sur-Mer and walked to the Omaha Beach and to the Normandy American Cemetery. 

I wasn't too keen on visiting war memorials or cemeteries, but the day presented a totally different experience from what I expected.That is not surprising when you realize that 4,500 Allied soldiers' and thousands more German soldiers' young lives perished within the 24 hours of the D-Day.

A memorial at the Omaha Beach reads, "The Allied forces landing on this shore, which they call Omaha Beach, liberated Europe - June 6, 1944."

The Normandy American Cemetery at the Omaha Beach is not just a cemetery and includes a fantastic museum and several view points out to the Beach. So if your time is limited, you can just get off the bus right at the entrance of this cemetery and see all three: the Omaha Beach, the museum and the cemetery. 

And the Memorial at the Bayeux (British Commonwealth) War Cemetery sums it up on both of the two battles …

August 2018 - after visiting Caen and Bayeux in the morning and noontime, we finally made it to the D-Day beaches. Since we still wanted to arrive in St. Michel that day, we ony visited Omaha Beach and Point du hoc.

Coming near the sites, the area is flagged with US-American and Canadian flags. Numerous military museums, tanks, and shops for souvenirs are paving the roads. It looks a bit like military disneyland. The beach itself is nothing special. People are relaxing on the sand, there are some flags and monuments next to it. At point du hoc, it looks more authentic. You can visit the old german fortifications and batteries and really can imagine how difficult it was for the allies to reconquer Europe and fight Nazi Germany.

As of WHS status, I am not sure. The WW1 memorials are too much based on cemetaries, WWII has "only " Auschwitz and Hiroshima so far. Definitely these two historic events need more recognition on the WHS list. But than maybe on an international scale, with memorials that commemorate the warfare and crimes.

I visited all 5 landing beaches of Normandy and the Pointe du Hoc this week. The site is expected to become a World Heritage Site in 2019 for the 75th anniversary.

The museum at Utah Beach was very good, giving a great overview of the timeline for that beach and the Americans as a whole. The Juno Beach Center was a great way to learn about the Canadian involvement in D-Day plus it was a great overview of Canadian history as a whole.

Highlights: Canada House, La Cambe German War Cemetary, Normandy American Cemetary, and Gold Beach.

I would highly recommend going during June for the anniversaries if you're interested in meeting veterans and hearing their stories. We met American, Canadian, and German veterans.

The events related to Normandy 44, the operation Overlord and the WW2 in general, are of primary universal significance. These events shaped today’s world. The proposed sites in Normandy provide a clear testimony in the sense that they are well preserved and that the events and facts associated are clearly stated and explained.

In my opinion, this site deserves to be part of the WH list for its universal significance and as a testimony of one of the worst period in history. However, the idea of a transnational site, gathering several symbols of WW2, should be privileged. First, it would carry the idea of gathering people and nations. Second, it would provide a better, wider and clearer testimony of this period and the events that occurred over a decade. Finally, it would show the global nature of the conflict.

In order to retain the most complete testimony, such a site should include, among the symbols and in addition to Normandy, memory sites of Bastogne, Pearl Harbour, Okinawa or Kanchanaburi as well as other sites in North Africa, Asia and Europe.

The "Plagues du Débarquement" or D-Day beaches were added to the French T-list at the same day as the funeral sites and memorials of WWI. Two seemingly similar nomination, but there is a substantial difference between these two tentative sites. The WWI proposal focuses on memorials and burial places, whereas the D-Day sites include the battlefields itself. The description on the WHC website lists the following parts: the five landing zones (Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword), the remains of two German batteries (Pointe du Hoc, Longues-sur-Mer), the remains of the artificial harbour Winston Churchill (at Arromanches-les-Bains) and underwater vestiges. Cemeteries and memorials are also mentioned and the term 'cultural landscape' is used, but no specific site is mentioned.

When we were preparing our trip in August 2015, the question arose which sites are worth a visit. Well, European beaches look more or less similar, just simply a coastline with sand. And so are the beaches in Normandy. So, walking along a beach, just because hundreds of thousands soldiers have landed there seventy years ago? Does not sound very exciting to me. However, the beaches in Normandy are very popular in summer with bathers and 'World War tourists', and the numerous museums and visitor centres along the coast are all well attended. We are not very interested in militaria and military history, so we skipped visits to the museums and decided to focus on the proposed sites at Arromanches (Gold Beach) and around Omaha Beach which seemed to be …