Bedford - The National D-Day Memorial

Ms. Edwards and I had not intention in visiting this memorial. We heard about it at a hotel and it reminded us of Washington DC Memorials. We had a free afternoon so decided to take the trip to view it. It was well worth the drive. I would highly recommend this memorial to everyone. You should also consider taking the tour that goes with the memorial. Everything you see has significance. The memorial is not completed but it well on its way.



Here are some things that Ms. Edwards learned about D-Day and the Memorial:

• D-Day occured on June 6, 1944


• D-Day is the day on which the Invasion of Normandy began. It marks the day when the Western Allies started their effort to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation.


• D-Day was supposed to occur on June 5, 1944. General Eisenhower halted the invasion due to weather issues.
• D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion at the time. It included ove 850,000 troops, 6900 vessels, 4,100 landing crafts, 12,000 aircraft, 1,000 transports, 10,000 tons of bombs, and 14,000 attack sorties.
• The invasion was assigned the codename of Overlord. The first phase, the establishment of a secure foothold, was given the codename of Neptune.
• Each of the beaches had a different name. The two beaches the Americans attacked where Utah and Omaha. the British beaches were Gold and Sword. The Canadian beach was Juno.
• D-Day loses: Omaha Beach (American) - 3000 soldiers. British - 400-600. German soldiers - 5000-8000. 2,600 paratroopers.
  

This picture was taken at underneath the Overlord archway. It is of a soldiers gun as well as their helmet. This would have symbolized that a soldier was buired beneth. The soldiers dogtags would also appear on the gun.

Here is a picture of the archway. On the top are the words Overlord. Beneath is a circle with the names of the different beaches that were attacked.


This is a replica of the SHAEF Patch. It was worn on the shoulder. It stood for Supreme Headquarters Allied Exeditionary Force. Eisenhower was in command of SHAEF. Seven men wore this patch.

This is a picture of taken under the archway.

This is the backside of a replica plane that was flown in Normandy invasion. The wing of the plane has the invasion signature. It had to be painted on all the planes the night before the invasion took place so that the Germans wouldn't recognize what it meant. It was painted on so that Allied troops wouldn't shoot down their own planes.