In my last blog post, I wrote about our visit to the American cemetery near Omaha Beach, Normandy. We also visited British and German cemeteries in Normandy. The cemeteries are different in important ways that helped me realize the losses experienced by people from different sides of the conflict in World War II.

German Cemetery, La Cambe, France

As you enter the German cemetery, you can leaf through a book of names of those buried on the grounds. Near the end of the book are printed words that could apply to Germans, Americans, Brits, or nearly any other people:

Darkly rises the mound over the grave of the soldiers.
Darkly stands God’s command over the dead of the war.
Yet brightly glows the sky above the towering crosses,
More brightly still shines their comfort: The final word is God’s.

British Cemetery

Second, while grave markers in the American cemetery all are white and include minimal embellishment, tombstones in British cemeteries include individual epitaphs chosen by surviving family members. Walking through the graves, I read many moving testimonies. One marker says, “You were only one to all the world but all the world to us. Mam, Dad, Sister, Brother.”

Serjeant S. Barber, Royal Artillery. Died 2nd August 1944, Age 30.

During our time in Normandy, we planned to visit the American cemetery to remember the soldiers who died there. What we did not expect, however, were deeply meaningful visits to British and German cemeteries. In this post, I will reflect on our visit to the American cemetery, and in the next post, I’ll write about our time at the German and British cemeteries.

Looking toward Omaha Beach

The American cemetery contains the graves of 9,387 service members, and the names of 1,557 service members are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.

In addition to the grounds, there is an excellent visitors center, which opened in 2007. You can learn the larger story of Operation Overlord and hear stories of individual men and women whose lives were altered in Normandy. Some of them died there, some were injured, and others lost their sons, husbands, fathers, or brothers.

The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves, bronze statue at American cemetery

Visiting the cemetery is well worth the time and effort involved. It is indeed a fitting memorial to the American service members who died on D-Day and in the Battle of Normandy.

Omaha Beach looking toward Pointe du Hoc

Omaha Beach

To enhance my experience in Normandy, I read Stephen Ambrose’s book, D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. Near the end of his book, Ambrose quotes General Eisenhower who visited Omaha Beach on June 6, 1964, to mark D-Day plus twenty years. Speaking with Walter Cronkite, Eisenhower looked over the scene and said,

You see these people out here swimming and sailing their little pleasure boats and taking advantage of the nice weather and the lovely beach, Walter, and it is almost unreal to look at it today and remember what it was. But it’s a wonderful thing to remember what those fellows twenty years ago were fighting for and sacrificing for, what they did to preserve our way of life. Not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of their own. But to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedom in the world.

Looking down at Omaha Beach from American Cemetery