Between the villages of Vierville-sur-Mer and Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes in Normandy, France, is a 5-mile stretch of beach that was once called Côte d’Or, or “golden coast.”

Since June 6, 1944, however, this beach has borne a different name: Omaha.

Eighty years ago, on a day now known as D-Day, thousands of Allied soldiers crossed the choppy waters of the English Channel by air and sea to land on beaches and coastal areas of Normandy, France, to destroy the Nazi invaders and defeat Hitler’s regime.

Within the military collections of the National Museum of American History, where I am a curator of modern military history, several artifacts collected over the decades help tell the story of Omaha Beach and the invasion landings on D-Day.

In the morning hours of D-Day, Pvt. Howard I. Moorefield of North Carolina was handed a piece of paper. As he later wrote in his museum donation, “most fellows read it and discarded,” but he chose to sign, fold and save his copy.

With the signature of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower at the bottom, the Order of the Day declared to all soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.”

For soldiers of Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, the Order of the Day mattered less than what awaited them at Sector Dog Green on Omaha Beach. Awakened aboard their troopship around 2 a.m., the soldiers pulled on their equipment. The regiment had been overseas since October 1942, preparing for this critical day with carefully rehearsed drills and training operations.

Yet just days before the invasion, the men received new U.S. Army assault jackets, made to help the first wave of soldiers as they carried ashore ammunition, TNT, a first-aid kit and other equipment. Once loaded, each jacket added upward of 60 pounds onto each soldier’s load.

As Company A’s six landing craft began to head to Sector Dog Green, one of the craft began to take on water. As men entered the deep water, the assault jackets became anchors, the cotton straps swelling in seawater and making removal of the garment almost impossible. Dozens of men drowned while others staggered ashore, exhausted.

The troops in Company A had expected to find shelter on the beach, which they had been told would be pockmarked with holes from aerial bombing and naval rockets. But when the soldiers in the surviving five landing craft arrived on the beach at 6:36 a.m., they found smooth sand and nowhere to hide from the enemy.

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