Normandy American Cemetery

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial sits on a 70-hectare bluff above Omaha Beach at Colleville-sur-Mer, Calvados, donated in perpetuity to the United States of America by the French Republic. The cemetery holds 9,388 white Lasa marble crosses and Stars of David, arranged in 17 plots overlooking the sea, marking the graves of American service members who died during the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 and the subsequent Battle of Normandy. An additional 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing in the semicircular memorial colonnade at the cemetery's centre. The cemetery was established as a temporary American military burial ground on 8 June 1944, two days after the landings, and was the first American cemetery on European soil in the Second World War. The permanent cemetery was dedicated on 18 July 1956 and is administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The memorial area contains a reflecting pool, a 7-metre bronze statue entitled The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves, and two loggia walls engraved with battle maps of the Normandy campaign. A visitors' centre opened in 2007 beneath the cemetery hillside, providing a permanent exhibition on Operation Overlord, individual soldier stories drawn from the burial records, and archival film footage of the landings. The exhibition moves chronologically from the planning of the operation through the assault, the Normandy campaign, and the liberation of Paris. The grounds include a garden of remembrance and a path leading down the bluff to Omaha Beach, where memorial markers and the remains of Mulberry Harbour pontoons survive at low tide. Annual commemorations are held on 6 June, drawing veterans, dignitaries, and tens of thousands of visitors from across Normandy and beyond.