Omaha beach was by far the bloodiest of beaches during D-Day. The Americans paid a horrendous price to take that length of sand: (via):

Wars leave names indelibly impressed into the psyche of our lexicon. Half a century later successive generations hear of these places without thought to their significance.

To the British they are Dunkirk, El Alamein and Arnhem. To Canadians Dieppe and Vimy Ridge (WW I) recognize catastrophe and success. To Americans, Iwo Jima, Tarawa and Omaha Beach symbolize costly, bloody triumphs against diehard enemies. “Bloody Omaha” is the image of killers, untouchable in concrete bunkers, slaughtering America’s youth helpless on an open beach. OMAHA Beach is sacred, hallowed ground bloodied by men who came three thousand miles to free Europe and subdue Hitler’s nazis.

To get a feel for what they faced, we hiked down the pebble beach. You stand at the bottom looking up, imagining German machine gun, mortar and artillery fire raining down on you, land mines and obstacles everywhere, absolutely no cover available. One has to wonder how anyone made it off the beach.

What they faced (via):

OMAHA Beach is a seven-kilometer (4 miles) long concave arc. The 35-meter (100-foot) bluffs gave the Germans, in long established positions, the high ground from which they dominated every square foot of the beach. Two thirds of the eastern end of beach was shingle making vehicle traffic impossible. At the western end a 2-3 meter sea wall ran the length of the promenade. A significant obstacle for mobile equipment. Five valleys (called draws) led from the beach up to the higher ground. The westerly
one at Vierville was paved but the other four were undeveloped tracks. The draws were wooded and defended by paired “resistance nests” (Wiederstandsnest). Six more resistance nests on the bluffs between the draws and three inland at the towns created a formidable defense. Along the beach were eight large caliber guns in concrete casements, thirty-five antitank guns in pillboxes and eighty machine gun nests. Communication trenches interconnected the defenses.

On the sandy beach were three lines of log obstacles, 7 meters apart, tipped with contact mines and shells. Closer to shore were metal hedgehogs tipped with explosives (similar to 4 meter tidily winks) to tear open the hulls of landing craft. At high tide the obstacles were beneath the water and difficult to see. From the beach to the foot of the bluff were antitank ditches, minefields and barbed wire, thickest around the draw entrances. Scattered liberally over the slopes were thousands of antipersonnel mines designed to explode under foot or pop up and explode at waist level.

We then hiked around the hill and headed to the top to get the German view. From the top, the whole beach rolls out in front of you. On the end of a sniper rifle or machine gun, it must have been a) scary to see the magnitude of the invading force and b) been like shooting turkeys in a barrel. Just keep firing.

What you do notice is how your view is limited, there is a certain field of fire and if someone makes it outside that field of fire, you are blind. To get that feeling, we climbed inside a bunker (this time I had my camera loaded). The entrance was overgrown and I went in first – carefully (you never know what someone left behind, beer bottles or worse).

Inside is very eerie. Absolutely dark (I kept using my flash to light it up … should have brought a flashlight). Silent and not very spacious. Imagine being crammed inside this thing with bombs and bullets whistling around. Better than on the beach, but still quite scary.

You can still see out the machine gunner’s opening. Limited field of view, but you can see a long way.

Hidden among the grasses and brush are remnants of the war, huge slabs of torn up concrete, careful where you step.

The vantage point from the top. The US troops stormed up this gap, it was a death trap – mines and barbed wire. Casualties on the beach averaged one per every 2 meters (6 feet).

I read that it took 20 years for the French to clean up the beaches, so littered with mines and anti-invasion devices. If you look out on the horizon, you can still see some remnants in the water.

A new perspective on why we wear the poppy and should be very thankful for what they did ..