The National D-Day Memorial, which honors all of those who stormed ashore in Normandy on June 6, 1944, regardless of nationality, is an amazingly well done, and quite sobering memorial. It is a fitting tribute to those who fought there, beginning the end of the evils of Nazism.
This is the Overlord Arch. It represents the triumph of Operation Overlord - the codename for the invasion. The alternating black and white stripes honor the air forces, which had painted these stripes, called 'invasion stripes', on all Allied aircraft the night before the Normandy landings. The invasion stripes made it easier for soldiers on the ground to identify whether the planes flying over them were friend or foe - and to decide whether or not to try to shoot them down.
Under the Arch is a statue called Final Tribute. It is the traditional marker of a soldier's battlefield grave: the soldier's rifle stuck barrel-first into the ground, with his helmet set on top. It is a tribute to the sacrifice of the 4,414 men from 12 different nations who died in Normandy that day.
