Last week some of us were working on a display at the Blount Historical Museum. We looked closely at two jars of sand from the beaches assigned to the Americans on D-Day. One is a jar of sand from Utah beach, another from Omaha beach. What is in a jar of sand some might ask? A lot it seems.
We put the jars side by side and there was a marked difference in them. The Utah Beach sand was lighter, the Omaha Beach sand dark and imposing looking. The Utah beach sand jar was about 20 years old. We estimate the Omaha Beach sand to be about the same vintage.
If you study the history of D-day, you will find that while both beaches took American casualties, Omaha beach by far was the hardest fought. It was Hell on earth for those young men who came face to face with enemy fire and extreme shelling on that day at Omaha beach. Many young men lost their lives in an effort to establish a foothold on the European continent. On June 6, 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had these words for the young men who were about to meet their fate: “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”
The allies needed those prayers. Predictions were that the allies had less than a 50/50 chance of success.
Gen. Omar Bradley was in charge of taking the Omaha beachhead on June 6, 1944. He had 34,250 men that would spread themselves along the six miles of beach. It was the largest of the beaches to be taken and was adjoined by Utah beach to the east and Gold beach to the west. The British Navy provided transport to the site on that bleak and rainy morning as the largest sea to land invasion in known history began.
At Omaha beach, bluffs as high as 60 meters were held by Germans with massive amounts of artillery and fire power. The British Navy piloted landing craft went off course at times, fighting rough seas with their craft full of seasick young Americans embarking on their first minutes of combat.
Landing craft began to hit the beaches by 6:30 a.m.
The Germans covered every inch of the coast with unrelenting sniper and artillery fire that they unleashed in force on the young Americans wading through the sea to the beach.
Young soldiers proved their mettle on those sandy beaches and the cliffs of Point-du-Hoch. The sand turned red from the blood of those young men. At Omaha beach alone over 2,400 were killed, wounded, or missing.
By late afternoon, the American had gained a small foothold on Omaha beach as well as Utah. Over 73,000 Americans landed on Omaha and Utah beach that day. The foothold would widen. By the end of June, the allies had landed more than 850,000 troops, 570,000 tons of supplies, and nearly 150,000 vehicles across the beaches of Normandy. There would be months of hard fighting in Europe before the Nazis finally surrendered in May 1945, but the D-Day invasion gave the Allies the success they needed to initiate the campaigns that would lead to the liberation of occupied Europe.
In 2011 a study was done of the sand at Omaha and Utah beaches. Utah, which took fewer casualties and had less shelling has the pretty normal configuration of feldspar, quartz, and limestone. The sand at Omaha beach, however, tells the story of the battle. Contained in the sand from Omaha beach is iron, glass, and other man-made metals, a legacy of D-Day, which gives it a dark and dreary look.
Young Americans left a footprint of history at Omaha beach. Researchers say the man-made contents of its sand could remain for centuries. Jars that tell the story are on display at The Blount Historical Museum. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesdays through Saturdays.
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