Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach was the Allied codename for one of the principal landing points during the Normandy landings on June 6 1944. The beach is about 3.5 miles long, from Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to Vierville-sur-Mer.

Famous names at the beach

• Omar Bradley, commanding general of Omaha forces, offshore aboard USS Augusta (CA-31).
• Robert Capa landed at Omaha Beach in the second wave as a news photographer. He did not stay on the beach long, and made the return trip on a landing craft. Nearly all of his photos were lost in a dark room accident.
• Norman Cota, a general from the 29th who helped motivate troops off the beach.
• Joseph T. Dawson was one of the first officers to make it to the cliff tops.
• Charles Durning, who later became a famous actor, was in the invasion.
• Ernest Hemingway was aboard a landing craft in the seventh wave as a war correspondent, but did not actually set foot on the beach. In later writing he not only implied that he had gone ashore, but that he had played a vital role in helping to locate the beach. Few questioned his assertions at the time, however.
• Director John Ford went ashore and shot official film of the landings.
• Forrest Pogue, an Army historian, interviewed the injured offshore.
• John M. Spalding led one of the first successful assaults into the German fortifications.
• Philip Streczyk made one of the first successful attempts to move inland.
• George A. Taylor, regimental commander from the 1st helped motivate troops off the beach.