What Normandy and D-Day sites taught me
Updated: Jun 17
"A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future. »
This quote triggered me already long time ago which finally motivated me to visiting the Normandy in May 2026, the beaches where history landed. Again with my brother who is sharing the same passion for historical sites.
Why? Because we are all interconnected, yesterday, today and tomorrow. We should humbly remind ourselves of this every day. Thousands of young men, who too had dreams for their lives, lost their lives on the beaches and in the fields so that Europe might be liberated from the Nazi regime.
Without D-Day, my mother would certainly never have returned home to Luxembourg after fleeing to the south of France during the war; she would never have met my father in the neighbouring village, never started a family with him, and my brothers and I would never have been born – let alone my daughter, who is now happily making a life for herself. This is a tribute to them, the unknown yet ever-present heroes. Thank you.
We stayed in Bayeux, a charming town of 12,000 inhabitants that was virtually untouched by the war. D-Day is everywhere; you hardly hear any French, and in the restaurants almost only English is spoken. Bayeux is ideally situated as a base for sightseeing and the Grand Hôtel du Luxembourg was perfectly located, good price to quality ratio, and only few minutes walk away from city center.
Our two guides from Overlord Tours : Antoine (on the photo with me) and Loic.
We started the journey with Antoine at our meeting point in Bayeux.
Antoine’s knowledge is incredibly detailed; he knows all the figures off by heart and is a master at bringing stories to life. You can tell that this isn’t just a job for him. I was very grateful to him that we arrived at the American Cemetery just in time, shortly before 4 pm, for the daily flag-lowering ceremony—accompanied by the playing of Taps.
Loic was also a very pleasant guide for our 2nd day. He was educational and passionate about the D-Day history and it shined through in his tour and explanations. Not to forget his great sense of humour. Beyond that a wonderful personality—friendly, kind and empathic.
The really impressive and heartbreaking experience is the fact that the Normandy American Cemetery sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach hence very short distance.
This huge field contains the graves of 9,389 soldiers (average age might be below 20) and most of them lost their lives in the D-Day landings. And probably more devastating for the families at home are the missing ones. On the Walls of the Missing, in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial, are inscribed 1,557 names. Some of these soldiers were, however, already married, and their wives were widowed very early on without ever having any definite news. It’s simply unimaginable.
White, stark crosses, by virtue of their anonymous simplicity and sheer number alone, serve as a call to us all. But this small American flag added a further sense of emptiness to the scene.
Suddenly, without any warning, an estimated 1,000 people come to a standstill, standing spellbound and in reverent remembrance of the fallen, listening to the melody of "Taps", the famous trumpet call from the American Civil War.
Walter’s heartbreaking story stands as a symbol for all those who have sacrificed their young lives. I happened to see this sign on my way out, and I can only hope that he is now leading a different life in the afterlife and has been reunited with his beloved wife, who has surely passed away in the meantime.
The "Miracle of Angoville-au-Plain" refers to an extraordinary act of humanity during the invasion. In June 1944, two American medics from the 101st Airborne Division, Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore, treated 80 wounded Allied and German soldiers, plus a local child, inside the village's 12th-century church.
Despite intense fighting that caused the church to change hands multiple times, the medics maintained a strict neutral sanctuary. When German soldiers discovered the enemy being treated alongside their own men, they respected the medics' impartiality and even placed a Red Cross flag on the door. The church still bears the bloodstains on its wooden pews as you can see on the photo.
On December 21, 2013, Robert E. Wright passed away at the age of 89. He never forgot his life-long connection to this small corner of France and it was his wish to be buried at the small church where he performed a miracle, years ago.
Staying suddenly in one German bunker was surreal, frightening. What must it have been like to suddenly see some 7,000 warships at dawn on 6 June? What would the world look like if we spent just 1% of the global military budget on schools, hospitals, research and peace-building projects?
The Americans suffered 2,400 casualities at Omaha Beach alone on June 6. The same beach where kids and families play in the sand today.
Normally, nature always takes care of everything, but these deep bomb craters above Omaha Beach still show us, even 80 years after the end of the war, the ugly face of horror and just how close humanity came to the brink of the final apocalypse.
These double gravestones were new to me too, which made them all the more tragic. The two paratroopers died here together and then shared their final resting place.
And Private Robert R.E. Johns (1927–1944) was the youngest British paratrooper to drop into Normandy on D-Day and the youngest to die in action during World War Two. Lying about his age, he enlisted in the Parachute Regiment at age 14 and was killed by a sniper in France at age of 16 in order to revenge his brother who also lost his life in combat in 1940.
This tragic story about Private Emile Corteil, 19 years young, and his German Shepherd Glen really moved me and took me by surprise, as I couldn’t have imagined anything like it. Being back home I started deeper research and I found this photo from both which puts both even closer to my heart. It appears that these "paradogs of D-Day" - dogs who were trained to parachute helping with mine detection and early warning duties.
However the parachute landings did not go well on D-Day and of the 700 paratroopers and one paradog who landed that night, only 150 landed anywhere near the battery. The other 550 soldiers had all landed several miles away and were desperately trying to regroup. Unaware that their own soldiers were so far off target the Allies continued to bombard the areas around the battery and sadly many of the paratroopers on the ground were killed in this fire, including Private Corteil and Glen.
War has countless victims - soldiers, civilians and animals. Emile and Glen were just one of many losses in World War II but their memories are not forgotten. If you visit this War Cemetery at Ranville, the first village to be liberated on D-Day, you will find their gravestone.
Why their? Emile Corteil was laid to rest with Glen by his side. Soldier and dog together for eternity in a peaceful corner of Normandy. Let them never be forgotten.
The British Normandy Memorial. I didn't expect this at all although I should have seen it coming when our guide, Loic, told us he wouldn’t be accompanying us, as it was still too emotionally taxing for him. This memorial isn’t a cemetery, and yet it really took my breath away. It sounds paradoxical, and I would have liked to have stayed longer to connect more deeply with the place and the people’s life stories. And all the while, with the beach of D-Day in the background.
In 2024 "Standing with Giants" installed a staggering 1,475 silhouettes across the wild meadow fields of the British Normandy Memorial called ‘For Your Tomorrow’. The 1,475 giants reflect the number of servicemen who died serving under British command on June 6.
Naturally we focus on soldiers but there were also other casualties and tragedies likes these two brave nurses, Sister Dorothy Field and Sister Mollie Evershed.
Instead of escaping to safety, they went below deck and rescued 75 wounded men. After safely loading the patients into lifeboats, they went back into the ship to save more trapped patients but tragically went down with the vessel. And these sculptures out of corten steel made it so reel, the beach in the background, and both so present.
There are many small black mementos, and this is just one example that, as a father of a daughter myself, has deeply moved me. Sadly, Pam never got to know her father, as he gave his life for the freedom of us all at the age of 24. Fred never got to experience the joys of fatherhood. What a loss.
There is so much more to tell; those days in Normandy were emotionally very intense, so I’d like to wrap up with this short interview. We met Kevin and his mother Helene from Washington D.C. whilst travelling. Kevin is currently studying in Aachen and we had a very insightful conversation over dinner, so I asked him to share his thoughts here. He is the same age as my daughter, and the future belongs to this generation – hopefully free from war...
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