Normandy American Cemetery
Quick answer: What is the Normandy American Cemetery?
The Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, above Omaha Beach, holds 9,387 American war dead from the D-Day landings and the Normandy campaign, with 1,557 names of the missing on the Walls of the Missing. It began as a temporary battlefield cemetery on June 8, 1944, and was dedicated in 1956.
John says the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, on the bluff above Omaha Beach, is the best place to begin any visit to Normandy. U.S. First Army started a temporary cemetery here on June 8, 1944, the first American cemetery of the war in Europe. Today it holds 9,387 Americans, and the American Battle Monuments Commission cares for it as one of 26 American military cemeteries on foreign soil. The names of 1,557 more, whose remains were never recovered or identified, are carved on the semicircular Walls of the Missing in the garden behind the memorial. John asks visitors to think of the waters offshore as part of the cemetery. At the center of the memorial stands the 22-foot bronze statue, "The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves," framed by loggias with maps of the landings. He walks through the plan of June 6: three airborne divisions before dawn, then six Allied divisions across five beaches, and the 1st and 29th Divisions fighting up open sand and steep bluffs to the plateau where the cemetery now stands. The trail from the overlook down to the beach, he notes, was used by American soldiers going the other way that day.
Why it matters for leaders: Starting at the graves reminds every visitor what each decision on that beach cost.
Q: How many Americans are buried there?
A: 9,387, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission, with 1,557 more named on the Walls of the Missing.
Q: When was the cemetery dedicated?
A: In 1956. It began as a temporary cemetery established by U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944.
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By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation