Normandy - Vierville-sur-Mer and Omaha Beach

Our next stop was at Vierville-sur-Mer which is also now known as Omaha Beach. This beach was made famous by the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944. The "D" in "D-Day" has no significance other than standing for the word "day." Also, the time that they landed was called "H-Hour", the "H" standing for "hour." The word "Omaha" comes from the Allied code name for the second American beach and is one of the five total beaches assaulted on D-Day. The Americans landed on this beach and another beach west of Omaha (Utah Beach), while the Canadians and British landed on three more beaches east of Omaha. 

We stopped here and had a very late lunch. This was a cute restaurant right near the beach. 

Embedded gun in the German bunker. These were
actually aimed at the beach not the sea.

This is a small German bunker. It was here that the
Americans established their first road inland. 

These are the remains of the artificial harbor that the
Americans built but it only lasted 12 days before a storm destroyed it.

Omaha Beach was where the most intense battles were on D-Day. The hills above were heavily fortified and a single German machine gun could fire 1200 rounds a minute! Which is also why this beach is nicknamed, "Bloody Omaha" as it had the highest casualty rate. It is estimated on the first day there were 10,500 casualties (roughly 6,000 Americans - about 4,000 on Omaha Beach). When the tide is low there are remains of rusted metal objects. The Germans put out many obstacles to disrupt the landings - metal poles, hedgehogs, miles of barbed wire, and 4 million mines. At least 150,000 tons of metal were taken from these beaches after WWII, and they still did not get it all and probably never will. 

Along the road they set up one of the floating roads from Arromanches

This is a German cloche that was outside a museum. I do not even know how you would get inside this. The walls are so thick. It weighs 133,000 pounds!

There are so much cute villages we passed thru in Normandy