Immediately after a combat area was secured, the grime task of recovering and burying the dead began. At Omaha Beach a cemetery was set up on the beach flat below the bluffs in the area between the St. Laurent and Vierville Draws. This site later became known as the 'First' American Cemetery.
American dead are collected for burial at this site below the bluffs at the beach, which became the 'First' American Cemetery.
Here the American dead from the first days of the battle where buried. It is
believed that German dead from the beach strong-points were buried here as well.
Ceremony at the 'First' American Cemetery.
This Cemetery would remain quietly at this site though the winter,
as the war moved on and the activity of the summer of 1944 at Omaha
Beach gave way
to an empty ghostly abandoned beach of 1945.
Eventually this Cemetery site on the beach would be moved to the
site further east above the bluffs where we now know it as the American
Cemetery
at Colleville.
As
the fighting moved inland, another cemetery was created for the
American
dead further inland at la Cambe, a village just off of highway N-13
west of Formigny. Mainly dead from the American 29th Division were
buried here. By
now Graves registration handled the details but the hard work of burial
was done by German
prisoners, now plentiful.
German prisoners digging American graves
at the la Cambe cemetery site. The graves
were marked by simple wood stakes, usually
with a dog-tag nailed to the wood.
Elsewhere, Germans were buried in small
improvised graves by their comrades,scattered throughout the Norman country-side.
A
typical improvised German grave site, one of many though out the Norman country side.
PHOTO-courtesy S. Bryant
Below: French list from the beginning of the 50ies.
La Cambe is
still an American cemetery
The New Cemeteries
In time it was decided to create a 'final resting place' that would become a memorial for the fallen American dead. It was decided to build this new American Cemetery on the bluffs, overlooking the beach between Colleville and
Vierville. Here the American dead, buried in various locations in and around the
Omaha Beach area would be consolidated together in one final interment.
With the creating of the new cemetery, Graves Registation and German prisoners had the difficult task of exhuming, sorting and moving the bodies.
French civilians place flowers on the graves of fallen Americans. It is unclear if this photo was taken at la Cambe or at the site of the second or new American Cemetery at Colleville on Omaha Beach.
When the new American Cemetery was set up above Omaha Beach near Colleville, the American war dead at the la Cambe Cemetery and those buried at the 'First' Cemetery down on the beach, were disinterred and brought to the new American Cemetery site for reinternment. Many of the fallen were returned to the US
by request of their families.
The 'New' American Cemetery above the beach. Soon the wooden crosses would be replaced by Italian white marble crosses or stars of David.
This cemetery is today the famous American Cemetery at Omaha Beach which stands today as a memorial to the American fallen. Those who saw the movie
"Saving Private Ryan will" recognize the site which was the location in the
opening and final scene of the movie.
The New Cemeteries Take Form
Colleville
The
Normandy American Cemetery, 172.5 acres in extent, is one of fourteen permanent American
World War II military cemeteries constructed on foreign soil by the American Battle
Monuments Commission. Nearby, on D + 1 (7 June 1944), the first temporary American
World War II cemetery in France was established by the American Graves Registration
Service. After the war, when the temporary cemeteries were disestablished by
the Army, the remains of the American military Dead
whose next-of-kin requested permanent
interment overseas were moved to one of the fourteen permanent cemetery sites
on foreign soil. Usually, it was the one which was
closest to the temporary cemetery. There the
American Graves Registration Service interred them in the distinctive grave patterns
proposed by the cemetery's architect and approved by the Commission. The design and
construction of all facilities at the permanent sites were the responsibility of
the Commission; i.e., the memorial, chapel,
visitors building, superintendent's quarters, service facilities,
paths and roads. The Commission was also responsible for sculpture, landscaping and
other improvements.
ARCHITECTS
Architects
for the cemetery's memorial features were Harbeson, Hough, Livingston and Larson
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The landscape architect was Markley Stevenson,
also of Philadelphia.
GENERAL
LAYOUT
The
Normandy American Cemetery is generally rectangular in shape. Its main paths are
laid out in the form of a Latin cross. An
avenue bordered by hedgerows, about one-half mile in length, leads from highway D-514
to the main entrance at the southeast corner of the cemetery. Inside the main
gate are the parking areas, the Visitors’
Building, and the Superintendents’ quarters. Beyond them,
filling most of the eastern end of the cemetery is a beautiful, semi-circular
memorial with a memorial garden and Tablets
of the Missing to its rear. Facing west, the memorial overlooks
a large reflecting pool, two flagpoles, from which American flags fly daily, the
graves area and the chapel.
A
wide, grassy mall extends westward from the reflecting pool bisecting the graves
area. The memorial chapel is located on the
mall about one-third of the way from its western
end. A narrower north-south mall intersects the central mall at the chapel. Two Italian
granite (Baveno) figures representing the United States and France rise above
the graves area at the western end of the
central mall. Encircling the cemetery proper is a service
road. An overlook, on a small jut of land
just north of the memorial affords an excellent view
of Omaha Beach directly below and the English Channel. Located at the overlook
is an orientation table showing the various
beaches and forces involved in the Normandy landings.
A low railing forms a parapet to the front at the edge of the cliff. From here,
the whole action of the landings and the
scaling of the escarpment may be visualized. From the overlook,
steps and a path descend to the beach. Along the path is a second orientation
table showing the artificial harbor or
"Mulberry" in some detail. Prior to the 1944 landings, the enemy
had installed artillery and machine-guns along the cliffs so that it could fire lengthwise
along the beaches. The cemetery is surrounded on the east, south and west by heavy
masses of plantings.
The cemetery site, at the north end of its ½ mile access road, covers 172.5
acres and contains the graves of 9,387 American military dead, most of
whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls
of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial are
inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and
identified.
The memorial consists of a semicircular colonnade with a loggia at each end
containing large maps and narratives of the military operations; at the center
is the bronze statue, "Spirit of American Youth." An orientation table
overlooking the beach depicts the landings in Normandy. Facing west at the
memorial, one sees in the foreground the reflecting pool; beyond is the burial
area with a circular chapel and, at the far end, granite statues representing
the U.S. and France. Text:
http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/no.php
Postcard early 1950ies
Statue was not installed yet!
The great administrative task of identifying and burying the dead has resulted in some odd errors, which once discovered are very hard to change.
The grave of Donald Myerly (110th Field Artillery)
has his death marked 24
of July. In fact Don was killed, along with 18 of his comrades, at the crossroads at Vierville on June7th. Despite the official record of the June7th incident and the formal testimony by his commanding officer who witnessed Don's death on June 7th, one will still find Donald Myerlys cross marking his death on 24 June 1944.
One day, a former American paratrooper visited the American Cemetery and to his surprise, he found his own grave. He checked and the serial number was his, but the body was not. He had a good idea who was buried there though. During the war he was taken prisoner. At that time, one of the Germans took his uniform and his Dog-tags, apparently to use to infiltrate into the American lines by pretending to be an American soldier.
Obviously this German was killed and when Graves Regitration found the body and American Dog-tag The German was buried with full honors at the American Cemetery. Today if you go to this grave you will be at the grave of an unknown German buried in the American Cemetery. He is perhaps the only German buried there, but then who really knows.
"Les
Fleurs de la Mémoire".
Recently
the Memorial Flowers society ("Les Fleurs de la Mémoire") was formed by French and American friends. Frank Towers, a WWII veteran from the American 30th Infantry Division is the current Executive Secretary of the society.
The mission of the society is to provide flowers to those graves which no longer have family members to remember their lost ones. Each French family adopts a grave site which that family now honors with flowers every year. This follows a memorial ceremony conducted by the society at the cemetery.
Members of the Les Fleurs de la Mémoire Society, moving to various 'adopted' grave sites to lay flowers. PHOTO- S. Bryant
June 2002 is when they launched their program. For more information one can visit their website:
Today, both the la Cambe and Colleville Cemetery sites, each in its own way, give silent testimony to the cost of war. Each grave marks the site of a future of possibilities never fulfilled. A British Cemetery inscription says it best "They sacrificed their futures so that we could have our future"
Beatrice and Marc Elie lay flowers as my friends Tim Roop and Partic Elie look on. As members of the Les Fleurs de la Mémoire, the Elie family have adopted this grave. PHOTO-S.Bryant
Perhaps the best tribute we can make to their sacrifice, is to ensure that in our time the peace and freedom they won is preserved and ensured for those generations yet unborn.
The German Cemetery at la Cambe
21.222 dead German soldiers
found theier final resting place here. It
is administered by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfuersorge e.V.
(German Society for War Graves Care) which is a private organization
dedicated to the recovery of the German dead of all wars and their
proper decent burial.
The "Volksbund" was founded on December 16th 1919 after WW1 when the
German government was not able to pay for the 2 million war dead of the
First
World War. In 1926 the German "Volksbund" was finally allowed to begin
its recovery work on the former battlefields of France.
After 1941 the new German Wehrmacht overtook the duties of the
"Volksbund" until the end of WWII. Refounded in April 1946 the
"Volksbund" was then put in charge again to recover the remains of 4,3
million dead soldiers on all former fronts.
