World War II Sites

World War II Sites

One of the great events of modern history, the D-Day invasion of June 1944, was enacted on the beaches of Normandy. At Arromanches vestiges of the great artificial ports called "mulberries" still remain and in the town a diorama and description of the landings make those desperate days live again. Omaha Beach (site of an eye-opening museum), Utah Beach, as well as many sites on the Cotentin Peninsula, and the memorials to Allied dead, all bear witness to the furious fighting that once raged in this now-peaceful corner of France. Today, as seagulls sweep over the cliffs where American rangers scrambled desperately up ropes to silence murderous German batteries, visitors now wander through the blockhouses and peer into the bomb craters, the carnage of Saving Private Ryan thankfully now a distant, if still horrifying, memory.