"This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor and the sacrifice."

"The heroism of our own troops in Europe was matched by that of the armed forces of the nations that
fought by our side. They and the brave men in the underground movements of the occupied countries
- all gave their blood to wipe the Nazi terror from the face of the earth. They absorbed the blows of the
German military machine during the many months in which we were building up our expeditionary
forces, and they shared to the full in the ultimate destruction of the enemy."

- speech to Congress by President Harry S. Truman




D-Day invasion troops
as posted by soldiersmediacenter (Army.mil) on Flickr

Along a fifty-mile stretch of French coastline lies a string of beaches better known by their code names - Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha - given for the largest single-day amphibious invasion in history. Here, on one of the longest, bloodiest days of WWII, Allied troops started an invasion at 6:30am that would mark a major victory of the European front.

More than 160,000 troops landed here, with some 10,000 giving their lives on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Of those who died, over 1,500 remain unidentified, lying under headstones with the simple inscription, "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God".

While many of us have parents or grandparents or great-grandparents who participated in the historic Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, the number of living survivors of that fateful day are dwindling. For most of us Americans, we learned the impact through films like The Big Red One, Saving Private Ryan, and The Longest Day; the Europeans lived the horrors of that war on their soil.

The impact of that day, and those three weeks that encompassed "Operation Neptune" are not forgotten, not by the world, nor by the locals. Street names and buildings are named in honor of the American, British, Canadian, French, Norweigian and Polish troops who came ashore here to help turn the tide of World War II. By the end of the summer, Paris was liberated; and the war officially ended September 2, 1945.

The costs of World War II are staggering by any standards: 24 million military dead; and more than 49 million civilians killed. The cost of the war, converted for inflation, was over $12 trillion worldwide. (In comparison, the Iraq war has so far cost over $675 billion.)

Remember on this day those who changed history on the shores of France, and who gave their lives and limbs to do so. And, as it is also one of the most heavily documented days of any war; read a first-person account of what it was like to be on the beaches of Normandy.

American Military Cemetary at Omaha Beach
picture by Mark H. Anbinder as seen on Flickr