The British Normandy Memorial: 22,442 Names Above Gold Beach
Normandy, France
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The British Normandy Memorial: 22,442 Names Above Gold Beach
250 + 100 XP
The British Normandy Memorial stands on a hillside at Ver-sur-Mer, 700 metres from Gold Beach, and was inaugurated on 6 June 2021. It records the 22,442 officers and soldiers under British command who were killed in Normandy between 6 June and 31 August 1944, men of more than thirty different nationalities. Liam O’Connor’s design sets those names across 160 columns around a cloister court in the order the men died, day after day, so what reads in the stone is the whole campaign and not just the morning of the landings.
Required Activities
1
of 6
Walk the cloister court and read the 160 columns the way they were set: the names run by the day each man was killed, so the opening columns carry 6 June and the rest carry the two and a half months that followed. Find where 31 August 1944 falls and look back along the stone at how much of the campaign came after the beaches
2
of 6
Photograph the bronze at the centre of the site — David Williams-Ellis’s three soldiers, larger than life, coming ashore — framed against Gold Beach itself, 700 metres below and behind them
3
of 6
Cross to the west side of the site, away from the columns, and find the separate memorial to the 20,000 French civilians killed in Normandy during the war
4
of 6
Walk the kilometre down into Ver-sur-Mer to the Musées America & Gold Beach on place Amiral Byrd and work out why the name has two halves: the 1944 landings on the sand below the memorial, and 2.32 in the morning on 1 July 1927, when the aircraft America came down on the water 200 metres off this shore and made Ver-sur-Mer the European end of the first transatlantic airmail link
5
of 6
Go the two and a half kilometres inland to Crépon and find the statue of Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis of the 6th Battalion, Green Howards, who fought at the Mont Fleury battery above this beach on the morning of 6 June and again at Crépon later the same day, and took the only Victoria Cross awarded for actions on D-Day
6
of 6
Walk the 700 metres from the columns down to Gold Beach, stand on the sand at the bottom and photograph the memorial on the rise above you — the same ground seen from each of its two ends
Walk the cloister court and read the 160 columns the way they were set: the names run by the day each man was killed, so the opening columns carry 6 June and the rest carry the two and a half months that followed. Find where 31 August 1944 falls and look back along the stone at how much of the campaign came after the beaches
Photograph the bronze at the centre of the site — David Williams-Ellis’s three soldiers, larger than life, coming ashore — framed against Gold Beach itself, 700 metres below and behind them
Cross to the west side of the site, away from the columns, and find the separate memorial to the 20,000 French civilians killed in Normandy during the war
Walk the kilometre down into Ver-sur-Mer to the Musées America & Gold Beach on place Amiral Byrd and work out why the name has two halves: the 1944 landings on the sand below the memorial, and 2.32 in the morning on 1 July 1927, when the aircraft America came down on the water 200 metres off this shore and made Ver-sur-Mer the European end of the first transatlantic airmail link
Go the two and a half kilometres inland to Crépon and find the statue of Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis of the 6th Battalion, Green Howards, who fought at the Mont Fleury battery above this beach on the morning of 6 June and again at Crépon later the same day, and took the only Victoria Cross awarded for actions on D-Day
Walk the 700 metres from the columns down to Gold Beach, stand on the sand at the bottom and photograph the memorial on the rise above you — the same ground seen from each of its two ends
Before you go
The memorial is open all year and free to go into, but the car park is charged and takes payment through a phone app rather than coins, so set that up before you arrive rather than at the barrier. The Winston Churchill Centre on site, with the café and shop, is closed for the winter and is due to reopen in April 2027. The Musées America & Gold Beach down in the village closes over the middle of the day and changes its hours with the season, so check before walking down.
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XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
250 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
350 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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