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.
I had seen pictures of this area, depicting the landings themselves. It has representations of a Higgins landing craft, hedgehog beach obstacles, men in various poses of battle: charging ashore, scaling a wall, some dying on the beach.
What I did not expect was small fountains that erupted in the water with a small explosive sound, invoking the gunfire that the soldiers faced.
The Missus and I were here just about two weeks ago (http://365project.org/timerskine/365/2020-10-17) but came back today to see a couple of things we had missed. This statue, called Through The Surf, is barely visible in my previous picture. It represents the struggles of the Allied soldiers to get ashore from their landing craft. Some landing craft got stranded on sandbars or snagged by beach obstacles called 'hedgehogs' and had to send the troops off in deep water. Sadly, some of it was so deep that the soldiers, weighted down with all of their equipment, drowned immediately.
