The American Cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer: 9,387 Stories

The Normandy American Cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer overlooks Omaha Beach and contains 9,387 graves — mostly of Americans who died in the invasion of Normandy and later operations in France. But the lesser-known fact is that approximately 300 of those buried are unidentified. The cemetery also features a Garden of the Missing with 1,557 names on two curved marble colonnades. But the most remarkable detail: the cemetery was one of the first places on French soil to be designated as permanent American territory. Under a 1945 agreement with France, the 172.5 acres of the cemetery were granted to the United States 'in perpetuity' — it is effectively American soil on the coast of Normandy. The stars and stripes fly over the cemetery alongside the Tricolor. The first burial was on July 9, 1944 — just one month after D-Day. The cemetery was designed to align precisely with the cliff face of Pointe du Hoc visible to the west, creating a visual connection between the cemetery and the site where U.S. Rangers scaled 100-foot cliffs.