American memorial

From the car park, it’s a short walk to the visitor center, a low, unassuming building that looks no bigger than a municipal railway station. Through the door, French Gendarmes politely request you pass through an airport metal scanner before entry.

On this level you can search the database for the names of the dead commemorated here, and their location amongst the 9,387 headstones. Downstairs is a new kind of bunker experience, a recently opened museum and theater space dedicated to bringing the world of June 1944 to life.

Not only are there the stories of politicians and generals but also the tales of simple heroism by those caught up in the melée of battle, storming Omaha Beach to secure European liberation from Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship. On the way out there is a recording of a voice, reading out the names of all the deceased. A memorial in sound.

From the exit to the Visitor Center, a path winds up toward the clifftop over Omaha Beach. The waves break gently against the rocks below and a breeze hushes through the pine trees fringed along its edge. There are a lot of people about when I visit, kids on a school trip, families talking quietly together, and servicemen paying tribute.

It’s a peaceful place, even with the gardeners engaged in essential tree trimming and grass cutting. None of it feels intrusive as you stand at the monument and look out across the vast field of headstones, set in 172 acres of grounds. Here there are forty-five sets of brothers, also lost together on D-Day.

In spite of the regulation symmetry of death depicted here, the cemetery has a powerful American thread of dynamic optimism, reflected in the leaping statue that reaches for the sun which is the centerpiece of the memorial.

The quiet perfection of the immaculately kept cemetery is in direct counterpoint to the chaos and destruction presented below ground in the subterranean visitor center. It resonates with a peace sorely captured amidst a demagogic period of world history.

Return to Bayeux

The Overlord Museum, on the way back from the cemetery, has perhaps the largest gift shop I have ever seen, and it is free to walk around until you are tempted, and buy something. Perhaps a souvenir rifle bullet key ring (Top-tip: don’t try to take it home in your hand luggage).

On the grounds of the museum, there is a display of tanks, an M4 A1 Sherman, battered, but restored for display, stands guard by the approach road.

There are more war museums in the nearby city of Bayeux, declared the temporary capital of France by Charles de-Gaulle following its liberation. The commemoration of a battle that took place almost a thousand years ago, in the Bayeux Tapestry Museum makes me wonder whether it could all happen again. WaL

PICTURED ABOVE: Omaha Beach near Vierville-sur-Mer. PC: JR P – CC 3.0.