A jacket, a coin, a letter – relics from the Battle of Omaha Beach tell the story of D-Day 80 years later

Between the villages of Vierville-sur-Mer and Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes in Normandy, France, lies a 5-mile stretch of beach once called the Côte d'Or, or “Golden Coast.”

However, since June 6, 1944, this beach has had a special name: Omaha.

Eighty years ago, on a day now referred to as D DayThousands of Allied soldiers crossed the choppy waters of the English Channel by air and sea to land on beaches and coastal areas of Normandy, France, to destroy the Nazi invaders and defeat Hitler's regime.

In the military collections on the National Museum of American History, where I’m Curator of Modern Military HistorySeveral artifacts collected over the many years tell the story of Omaha Beach and the D-Day invasion landings.

A letter from a general

In the early hours of D-Day, Pvt. Howard I. Moorefield of North Carolina received a bit of paper. As he later wrote in his museum donation, “most people read it and threw it away,” but he selected to sign, fold and keep his copy.

With the signature of General Dwight D. Eisenhower at the underside Agenda declared to all of the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: “You are about to begin the Great Crusade to which we have been working these many months. The eyes of the world are on you.”

Special equipment goes flawed

For Soldiers of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, twenty ninth Infantry Division, the day's orders were less essential than what awaited them at Sector Dog Green on Omaha Beach. Around 2 a.m., the soldiers aboard their troop transport awoke and placed on their gear. The regiment had been abroad since October 1942 and ready for this critical day with fastidiously rehearsed exercises and training missions.

But just days before the invasion, the boys received recent U.S. Army assault jackets, made to assist the primary wave of soldiers land transport ammunition, TNT, a primary aid kit and other equipment. Once loaded, each jacket added greater than 60 kilos to every soldier's load.

As the six landing craft of Company A made their technique to the Dog Green sector, one in every of the ships began to tackle water. As the boys entered the deep water, the battle jackets became anchors, the cotton straps swelling within the seawater and making removing the clothing almost unattainable. Dozens of men drowned while others staggered exhausted to shore.

The troops of Company A had expected to search out shelter on the beach, which that they had been told can be riddled with air raids and naval missiles. But when the soldiers within the surviving five landing craft arrived on the beach at 6:36 a.m., they found slippery sand and nowhere to cover from the enemy.

In lower than 10 minutes, German machine gun fire, mortars and artillery nearly destroyed Company A.

Other firms from the 116th would land on Omaha Beach within the Dog White, Dog Red and Easy Green sectors. Wet, cold, scared and pinned down by enemy fire, many soldiers Take off the uncomfortable combat jackets and did what they might to remain alive and get off the beach.

In the times after D-Day, the beaches were affected by combat vests. A veteran of “Bloody Omaha” decided to send a vest back to Virginia, the fate of its former wearer is unknown.

Multiple waves of troops

Further down Omaha Beach Sector Easy RedPhotographer Robert Capa arrived on the shore at around 8:15 a.m. with the command group of Company E, sixteenth Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division.

As a part of the thirteenth landing wave, he spent half-hour on the beach capturing images of the invasion before returning to the attack transport ship USS Samuel Chase.

On June 19, five of Capa's images graced the pages of Life magazine, highlighting the invasion to Americans.

An emblem of the importance of struggle

When Capa got here back on board the Chase, Capa got here back too countless wounded from the primary waves of attacks. Navy and Coast Guard personnel immediately went to work, including Walter Melville Weberbauer, a pharmacist's mate firstclass from New Jersey.

As he helped treat the wounded, there was a small copper coin on the identification tag around his neck – a British Palestine coin price 2 million.

Perhaps during prayer or just for good luck, he rubbed the coin until the word “Palestine” almost disappeared. As a Jewish man, Weberbauer's fight against the Nazis within the waters off Omaha Beach was understandably significant.

The country's highest military award

As wounded soldiers continued to reach aboard the USS Samuel Chase throughout the afternoon, Army leaders decided to land the remaining members of the first Infantry Division's twenty sixth Infantry Regiment on Omaha Beach.

That evening the boys of Company H of the twenty sixth left the ship and went ashore, including a machine gunner. Pfc. Francis X McGraw from New Jersey. Having already fought in North Africa and Sicily, Normandy can be McGraw's third battle with the Nazis. Months later, on November 19, 1944, McGraw's war ended near the German town of Schevenhütte.

He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his one-man stand against a cruel German attack.

A record within the landscape

In the times and weeks after June 6, Omaha Beach was a highway for Allied men and material entering Europe. This traffic even modified the sand itself.

Today, 4% of the sand on Omaha Beach consists of tiny iron grains, mostly micro-splinters, that are formed during intense fighting on the beach and the following build-up of forces.

These various objects—a document, a bit of clothing, photographs, dog tags, a decoration, and sand—all remain indelibly marked by a time and place.

By linking time, space, and memory, these objects interweave lives whose paths, within the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fight to finish the conquest … to liberate … to bring about justice, and tolerance and goodwill amongst all … people.”