Normandy American Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 49.359205, -0.855093
Location: Colleville-sur-Mer, Calvados
Record count: 10,944

Ownership: American Battle Monuments Commission

Directions: 14710 Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Normandy American Cemetery sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel, east of St. Laurent-sur-Mer and northwest of Bayeux in Colleville-sur-Mer.

The cemetery is located at the north end of a half mile access road on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach.

Background: Normandy American Cemetery is located at the north end of a half mile access road on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. The 172.5-acre cemetery contains the graves of 9,387 United States military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. Burials here also include the graves of Army Air Force crews shot down over France as early as 1942. Another 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.

This cemetery was built on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 as the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.

Normandy American Cemetery is one of 14 permanent American World War II military cemeteries maintained by the ABMC on foreign soil. The cemetery was dedicated on July 18, 1956.

Normandy American Cemetery was formed through the consolidation of ten temporary cemeteries in the region established during Operation Overlord and the campaign inland. The cross-shaped cemetery includes ten grave sections, five on each side of the main (east-west) mall. Within these sections there are 307 unknown burials, three Medal of Honor recipients, and four women. Forty-five sets of brothers are commemorated or buried in the cemetery, including 33 who are buried side-by-side. A father and son are also buried alongside each other. Every grave is marked with a white marble headstone: a Star of David for those of the Jewish faith, and a Latin cross for all others. The backs of the headstones are inscribed with the service numbers of the decedents.

There is also one WWI veteran, Quentin Roosevelt who died July 14, 1918, of the US Army Air Corps.

Burial Records

• ABMC Burial Records, by Interment.net, Apr 7, 2016, (10,944 records)

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