For this first walking tour of 2025, a group of 5 young doctors coming from La Réunion island got together to visit Normandy. Le Mont Saint Michel, Etretat and… Omaha Beach.
They chose «Omaha Beach D-Day Explorers Walking Tour» (one of the four Omaha Beach tours I offer) to discover the events of June 6, 1944 and understand the assault phase of Operation Overlord here in Omaha Beach.
From WN62, Omaha’s best known German defensive nest, we walked along the beach, Easy Red Sector, one of the deadliest on the dawn of June 6, 1944.
Exploring blockhouses of WN62 is a highlight of the visit, especially for visitors unfamiliar with the Atlantic Wall
Here in front of WN62 observation post (commanding Houteville’s gun battery, a few kilometers inland). A good place to stop and realize just how exposed American soldiers were.
Visiting German soldiers shelters is always an impressive experience.
Protected from cold wind, we stop to watch archives photos. Here are photographs of 3 German soldiers who were there on June 6 1944. Lieutenant Bernhard Frerking killed here on D-Day, and 2 machine gunners, Heinrich Severloh and Franz Gockel, authors of D-Day accounts.
We ended this Omaha Beach tour walking in the American Cemetery. We talked about the destiny of several American soldiers who are buried here.
Today, the destiny of Nathan Baskind, a Jewish American lieutenant who landed on June 6, 1944 on Utah Beach and KIA near Cherbourg and buried for 80 years in a German military cemetery. He now lies near his brothers in arms in the American cemetery. He is the nine thousand three hundred and eighty ninth soldier to be buried here on June 23, 2024, eighty years after his died.
The 6888th march in Rouen (1945)
Today, during this Omaha Beach guided tour, we also told the story of 3 of the 4 women buried in the American cemetery: Dolores Brown, Mary Barlow and Mary Bankston. They died in a jeep accident near Rouen, in July 1945.
They belong to the 6888th Central Postal Battalion. This American military unit of the Women’s Army Corps was an all-female African American unit of the US Army during WW2. They had to sort hundreds of thousand of undelivered letters (some of them had been delayed for two years) so they could be delivered to American soldiers and their families. Their motto was “No mail, no morale”.
In 2024, a film pays tribute to them “The Six Triple Eight” by Tyler Perry.
Omaha Beach guided tours
Normandy D-Day tours
Omaha Beach history
Omaha Beach D-Day landing sites tours