Utah Beach Landing Museum

After walking around town we went to the Utah Beach Landing Museum, which is set up at the site of the U.S. landing of June 6th. There we saw a scale model of the German defenses, amphibious vehicles, weapons, photographs, maps, and WW2 American and German artifacts and read the stories of what happened that on this spot on that critical day. We learned that the outcome at Utah beach was significantly different from that of Omaha beach, because here there were fewer German fortifications, more effective air raids and air support before the invasion, better landings of tanks, and the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions of paratroopers had landed 5 hours prior to the beach landings, which confused and helped clear out the German defenses. This resulted in much heavier airborne casualties than those on the landing beach.

It was at Utah Beach that American divisions landed and pushed inland to meet up with US airborne forces around St. Mere Eglise. We read a plaque that explained that between D-Day and November 1st of 1944 836,000 men and 220,000 vehicles came ashore here.

A plaque from the society Le Souvenir Francais reads:
to the memory of the valiant soldiers of the United States
fallen for the liberation of France
June 6 1944