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Normandy Landing beaches and cemeteries

The Normandy Landings began on the 6th June 1944, when 130,000 troops set off from the south coast of England (including some from the port at Bucklers Hard, where Nelson's ships had launched 150 years earlier) and landed on the beaches of Normandy - Operation Overlord had begun.

First an air-based landing took place very early in the morning, with both British and American troops being parachuted in to occupied France, followed by a sea-based invasion at 6.30 in the morning. In just that one day 130,000 troops were landed on the Normandy coast at Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah beaches.

Despite a great deal of lives lost (50,000 in Calvados alone), these battles represented the turning point of the Second World War in western Europe.

So for many people, a visit to the beaches of the Normandy Landings is a pilgrimage rather than a holiday destination. Many still have memories of that time, others have memories of relations lost in the battles on those beaches.

As you walk along the beaches or through the cemeteries, the sense of history and importance of the places is inescapable. 

It is an extremely moving event, to walk on the Normandy Landings beaches, and also to visit the cemeteries containing thousands of graves, in well tended lines, and to reflect on what the world might be like today without the bravery and victory of those landings.

If you plan to visit the Normandy Landing beaches, the coast road can be followed to Sword, Juno, Gold and Omaha beaches - and Utah beach is just a little further. Several cemeteries are also passed along the route. Just off Gold beach at Arromanches you can see the remains of the floating harbour used during the landings.

Many visitors to the landing beaches also like to see the Cafe Gondrée, the first house in France to be liberated in the landings. In truth there is little to actually see at the beaches, apart from the remains of a harbour built hurriedly by the allies, but the absence of artefacts is unimportant and in no way detracts from the experience.

The museum of the landings and battles (Battles of Normandy Museum) in Bayeux offers a great deal of information about the landings.

We also have a guest article about a personal visit to the Normandy Landing beaches