A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

n into fire and maneuver teams . The fire teams provided bursts of cover while t

he maneuver teams rushed forward . The Germans were startled by such aggressiven

ess . They fled . Cota turned west toward Vierville . Frenchmen stared in surpri

se as he and his men moved through town . Cota took an aide and four riflemen an

d started down Vierville draw from the top . Germans in a fortification on the e

ast side opened fire . Cota 's riflemen shot back . The Germans , dazed by the n

aval bombardment , gave up . Ambrose says Cota ordered them to lead the way down

 the draw through minefields to the beach . The group made it . Back on the sand

 , Cota organized demolition teams to dynamite a roadblock at the bottom of the 

draw . He summoned tank units to advance through the opening . But there were Ge

rmans still on the face of the bluffs , and they were sweeping the beach with ma

chine-gun fire . It took hours , Ambrose says , to fully open Vierville draw . (

 End optional trim ) The assault on the bluff was only one of several notable ac

ts of initiative that saved the invasion . Another came when Gen. Clarence Heubn

er , commander of the 1st Divison , told his 18th Regiment to go ashore the Navy

 be damned , along with its order that had suspended landings . All morning , th

e tide at Omaha Beach had been rising . By now Rommel 's obstacles were hidden u

nder water and were particularly dangerous . Skippers had their orders to stay a

way . But now regimental officers had orders to go in . They argued fiercely wit

h the skippers . Finally , a landing craft , carrying tanks , charged at full sp

eed through the obstacles , all guns firing . Another rammed its way through , c

arrying infantry , all weapons blazing . Other skippers began to yield to the Ar

my 's demands , Ambrose says , and the 18th got ashore but not without severe lo

sses , compounded when the 155th Regiment of the 29th Division mislanded on top 

of it . The landings , however , gave Omaha a welcome infusion of firepower . It

 was badly needed . The traffic jam on the beach was taking a pounding from Germ

an machine guns , mortars and artillery . With support from the newly arrived re

giments , bulldozers began cutting a gap through a line of dunes just east of an

 exit draw leading up to a plateau between St.-Laurent and Colleville . By 1 p.m

. , the draw was open . Vehicles on the beach started moving at once . Slowly th

e traffic jam eased . At dusk , with the opening of the Vierville draw , as well

 , men , tanks , trucks and Jeeps began emerging on the flat land above the beac

h in significant numbers . They reinforced GIs on the plateau , and the American

s started moving inland . By nightfall , troops from the 29th and 1st divisions 

were scattered in 18 pockets in and around Vierville , St.-Laurent and Collevill

e . They had no continuous line . They had no artillery and few mortars . But th

ey had dug in . Omaha was secure . -0- GOLD , JUNO AND SWORD On the east flank w

ere the beaches of Gold , Juno and Sword . They were targeted by forces from Bri

tain and Canada , joined by a small group of commandos from France . The British

 6th Airborne Division was assigned to seize bridges over the Orne River and the

 Caen Canal , to destroy a coastal battery at Merville and to delay any German a

dvances from inland . Sixty pathfinders jumped from light bombers to mark drop z

ones . The pathfinders landed at 12:20 a.m. June 6 . They set up radar beacons a

nd flashing lights . Shortly afterward , glider-borne troops from the 6th Airbor

ne touched down alongside the Benouville bridge crossing the Caen Canal . Capt. 

John Tillett , 24 , who served as adjutant of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshir

e Light Infantry , was aboard . It was dark . Tillett expected a crash landing .

 But he was lucky . Only one wing and the wheels ripped off when his glider touc

hed down . Tillett knew that any glider landing that let soldiers walk away was 

a good one . Tillett and his men joined in a successful assault at Benouville br

idge , later named Pegasus bridge to honor their insignia and the heroism of Bri

tish troops , including officers such as Maj. John Howard and Lt. Danny Brotheri

dge , the first Allied soldier , historian Stephen E. Ambrose says , to be kille

d by enemy fire on D-day . The 6th Airborne assault on the bridge over the Orne 

River was successful as well . Staff Sgt. Norman Elton , 24 , landed his glider 

near the village of Ranville . The aircraft carried two Jeeps . The only way to 

unload them was to remove the tail of the plane . Elton and his co-pilot hacked 

it off with an ax . It took two hours . All the while , Germans were firing mort

ars . Lt. Col. T.B.H. . Otway destroyed the German battery at Merville , against

 huge odds and at an awful price . Half of his 150 men were killed or wounded . 

As the sun rose , Allied bombers hit the railroad station at Caen and the villag

es of Ver-sur-Mer and La Riviere . The British cruiser Belfast shelled German in

stallations from the channel . And at 7:35 a.m. , British underwater demolition 

teams and Royal Engineers landed on the sand at Gold beach . There were no Germa

n tanks on the beach and not many troops . When men and vehicles from the 50th D

ivision rushed ashore , there was comparatively little to stop them . The men sc

aled a seawall , crossed an antitank ditch and found themselves in the villages 

of La Riviere and Le Hamel . Now the fighting was street-to-street . La Riviere 

held out until 10 a.m. Le Hamel fell at midafternoon . By the end of the day , t

hey had penetrated six miles inland and had positioned themselves to take Arroma

nches and Bayeux . At Juno Beach , the fighting was heavier . Royal Marine Capt.

 Geoffrey Knight was in charge of small craft that took sappers onto the beach e

arly . They had been assigned to clear obstacles and mines ahead of the Canadian

 3rd Infantry Division . As Knight neared the sand , a German shell blew a hole 

in his boat . He succeeded in landing his flotilla . Then he straggled ashore , 

soaking wet . The Canadian 3rd was a collection of lumberjacks , miners , fisher

men and farmers . They were very tough , Ambrose says , but they got to Juno Bea

ch 10 minutes behind schedule . It gave the Germans time to recover from a bomba

rdment by B-17s and the Royal Navy . At 8 a.m. the Germans opened fire . For the

 Canadians , the chances of being hit were one in two . ( Begin optional trim ) 

Lance Cpl. Harold Little , 22 , of Winnipeg landed near the village of St.-Aubin

 . On the sand , his tank hit a mine . Little and his commander got out . Crouch

ing against German gunfire , Little directed another tank toward a path that app

eared to be safe . The tank hit a mine . The blast caught the left side of his f

ace . He felt himself rise in the air . Suddenly , Harold Little sensed it : He 

was blind . But he could still hear . The tank roared . He thought it was coming

 straight at him . He picked himself up off the sand . He thought he knew where 

his own tank was , about 20 feet away , and he turned and ran . He slammed direc

tly into it . His tank crew guided him to cover , but he had lost much of his si

ght forever . ( End optional trim ) At 6 p.m. , Canadians had reached Beny-sur-M

er , more than three miles inland . Finally , the Canadians linked up with the B

ritish at Creully . At the end of the day , says John Keegan , the military scho

lar , the Canadians had penetrated more deeply into France than anyone else . At

 Sword Beach , on the easternmost edge of the invasion , Pipe Maj . Bill Millin 

, 21 , stepped out into the chaos with panache . He wore a kilt , with boots and

 gaiters , a green beret , his battle jacket and the six-inch commando knife of 

his trade . But , most important of all , Millin had his bagpipes . Brig. Lord L

ovat , 32 , also known as Simon Fraser , the 24th chief of the Fraser clan , had

 charge of the Scottish commandos . When the ramp on the first of the landing cr

aft went down , Lovat had ordered up a skirling rendition of `` Highland Laddie 

. '' And Bill Millin was blowing it with everything he had . The commandos and m

en from the 3rd Infantry rushed a line of seaside villas at Ouistreham . Germans

 fired from the villa windows and from pillboxes in the dunes . The British stor

med the houses one by one , and then a casino as well . The Germans had turned i

t into a fortress . Before long , a line of German prisoners stretched from the 

casino to the water 's edge . There were French commandos with the English and t

he Scots . As early as 8 a.m. , the force pushed inland . Lovat and his commando

s broke into open country and linked up with the 6th Airborne holding the bridge

s at the Orne River and the Caen Canal . To Guillaume Mercader , 29 , in the Fre

nch Resistance , it was a joyous blessing . The Mercaders had paid dearly ; hour

s before , his mother and father had been killed in Caen when a bomb fell on the

ir house . Now , in the evening of D-day , his wife sewed the Croix de Lorraine 

on a French flag he had been hiding in his attic , and Guillaume Mercader flew i

t . A little French girl , Josette Gouellain , came up to Bill Millin . She plea

ded : `` Musique ! Musique ! '' Lovat gave permission . Millin played `` Nut Bro

wn Maiden '' because of her hair and her eyes . She ran after him , but he told 

her to go back . After all , there was a war going on . -0- D-day casualties nev

er have been counted with precision . For the Allies , estimates of the dead and

 wounded have ranged as high as 12,000 and as low as 4,900 . For the Germans , c

asualty estimates have ranged from 4,000 to 9,000 . For another 334 days , the w

ar would go on . The Allies would build their foothold on the beaches of Normand

y into an advance across France and into Germany itself . On May 7 , 1945 , the 

Nazis would surrender .

 Edward Regan can tell you exactly what his combat efficiency rating was the mom

ent photographer Robert Capa snapped what is perhaps the most famous picture of 

D-Day . `` Zilch , '' he says . Most of the men who splashed ashore onto Omaha B

each were in the same condition . Regan himself had just passed two dead GIs flo

ating facedown in the water and was gathering strength to crawl forward when fat

e picked him for photographic immortality . Of all the shots taken that gray Jun

e day , none has come as close to capturing the shock of battle . How the 21-yea

r-old infantryman became frozen in history is a tale involving Capa 's daring an

d an infamous lab accident . A Hungarian-American photographer on assignment for

 Life magazine , Capa had made his reputation with daring combat shots . `` If y

our pictures aren't good enough , you 're not close enough , '' he once said . W

hen the military unit he was following waded onto Omaha , Capa realized that fac

ing the withering German fire was suicide and sought cover . He made a dash for 

the beach behind two soldiers . `` The slant of the beach gave us some protectio

n , so long as we lay flat , from the machine-gun and rifle bullets , but the ti

de pushed us against the barbed wire , where the guns were enjoying open season 

, '' he would write in one of his books . Before running to catch a ship returni

ng to England , Capa snapped 72 images , including a bedraggled GI in the water 

. The subject was a draftee from a Pennsylvania coal town getting his first tast

e of battle . Like many invasion soldiers , Regan became seasick on the way over

 and nearly drowned in deep water after stepping off his landing craft . He neve

r noticed Capa , but his mother saw the photo in Life and saved it . More dramat

ic shots may have existed among the images taken by Capa during the landing , bu

t the world will never know . A technician at Life 's London office left the fil

m in a closed drying cabinet , melting the film emulsion . Only 11 pictures were

 printable . Life caption writers credited the blurred image to the `` immense e

xcitement '' of the moment . Some feel this actually increased the photo 's impa

ct . Capa himself felt that to convey good war shots , photographers should shak

e the camera a little . At Omaha , Regan got his second wind and crawled to land

 . During the Allied push to Germany , he won a Silver Star , a Purple Heart and

 the French Croix de Guerre . Regan contacted Life magazine to get a copy of the

 Capa photo before D-Day 's 40th anniversary . Soon after , Life magazine flew R

egan to France for another set of photos on the beach . He remains unimpressed w

ith his fame and says Capa could have focused on anyone that day . `` We were al

l drenched and sick as dogs , '' he said . ( Optional add end ) Cornell Capa , b

rother of Robert and director of the International Center of Photography in New 

York City , made Regan a guest of honor at an exhibit of his brother 's works at

 the center . `` His picture was used millions of times without a name , '' says

 Cornell Capa . `` Now he has a face and a name . '' The exhibition opened last 

Wednesday , 40 years after Robert Capa died on a combat photo mission in Indochi

na . Regan , 71 , moved his family 27 years ago to Atlanta , where he served as 

a social services administrator . During the 40th anniversary celebration , he a

ppeared on NBC 's `` Today '' show along with a German veteran . Afterward , his

 former enemy asked him about Germany 's exclusion from the commemoration in Fra

nce . Didn't he think Germany should have been invited ? Regan told him no . `` 

I wouldn't have made a very good diplomat , '' he says .

 NORMANDY , France Not far along the walkways of the lovingly tended burial plac

e above Omaha Beach , where the American dead of D-Day and weeks after lie , the

re is a small reception building with one focal attraction inside . This is a la

rge book in which visitors are invited to sign their names and say in a few word

s what they feel . I am hesitating here , with a line behind me , because after 

hours of wandering among the white marble crosses and the six-pointed stars almo

st 10,000 of them I feel a heart so overloaded I can't find the words . I am cur

ious to know what comments have occurred to others , so winning no friends among

 the people waiting , I flip backward through the book . Apparently I 'm not the

 only one to be made inarticulate by the emotional impact of this place which ev

en the French schoolchildren who come here in busloads appear to treat as sacred

 ground . The signers of the book who leave comments repeat what others have wri

tten ahead of them , with little try at originality . There are two phrases that

 recur over and over . One is `` God bless them . '' The other is simply , `` Th

ank you . '' The blessing is for the sleepers in the ground . Amen. And the than

k you may be taken another way . It could be partly meant for the authorities an

d the workers who keep this place so beautiful . Imagination can't picture the t

axpayer who would quibble over a penny as it has been expended by the United Sta

tes on the 172 acres of this shrine . It has the dignity and the meticulous care

 owed to the men under the marble markers who bore the climactic battle of the w

ar in Europe and died doing it . The eyes of the world were on them , their supr

eme commander told them at the mammoth embarkation , and Eisenhower had exaggera

ted in no way . Can anybody who is , like me , a contemporary of the men interre

d above Omaha Beach not remember the intensity of expectation with which people 

in and out of uniform awaited the invasion ? Short of the Second Coming , it may

 have been the most anticipated event of all time . We had waited so long and so

 impatiently as the war smoldered on the far edges of Hitler 's stolen territori

es . When June 6 , 1944 , finally arrived , I was 20 years old , the war in Euro

pe had gone on for a quarter of my lifetime and I had spent a tenth of it in uni

form . A world without warfare flaming totally around it was imaginable to me on

ly as a blurry utopia . The news of D-Day , signifying the beginning of the end 

, came like a biblical trumpet , changing the world with a blast . Where it reac

hed me , some 8,000 miles away on a Pacific island , it caused a squad of us to 

stir out of sleep in the morning and gang around a staticky radio . I remember t

hat , although it was a consummation of our wishes , there was no whooping or ro

ughhousing in celebration . We had too vivid an idea of what unknown brothers we

re going through . If the gears of military bureaucracy had worked differently ,

 we could be there instead . There was a thought even more sobering . If this me

ant the end of the war in Europe , it brought closer what we expected might be o

ur own D-Day the dreaded invasion of mainland Japan . The memory of that morning

 and the individual faces solemn with intense listening is powerfully alive in m

e as I walk and rewalk among the graves of those who were in action on that day 

when probably more prayers rose around the globe than ever before or since . It 

seems impossible that it was half a century ago . To the kids who come here , th

e kids in the ground must seem a mere historical abstraction like the Normans wh

o invaded across the English Channel in the other direction 900 years ago . But 

I can personify any grave marker here by matching it to a GI personality I remem

ber with an ethnically similar name . Here lies Salvatore Arnone , a tech corpor

al from New York who died on D-Day plus 5 . I knew at least three of him . In th

is place , I think I know what is meant by `` survivor 's guilt . '' Here among 

the unlucky ones who paid with all they had , I 'm ashamed to remember that for 

me , the war was a teen-age adventure and a help toward growing up . I remember 

how the brotherhood of the uniform satisfied the adolescent need to belong . Thr

own among the uprooted youth of the war years , I learned for the first time how

 easy it can be to make friends . I thought everybody wearing olive drab pants o

r Navy blue was my friend , and without deserving it , I get a resurgence of tha

t feeling here where the uniform is white marble . I want to wake some one of th

e sleepers up and ask , `` How bad was it , Joe ? '' I know how bad it was witho

ut having had to learn the way they did . There is a sound that has haunted me f

or much of my life although I know it only from the testimony of those who can s

tand among these graves with a better conscience than mine . I have been told th

at it is common , when a young soldier takes the wound that ends in this kind of

 burial , for him to regress to earliest childhood and cry for his mother . It i

s wrenching to think how close to childhood so many of the fallen of D-Day actua

lly were . On rainy days during the basic training for World War II , they would

 show us films indoors . One of these I remember as punctuated by the sound of m

embers of the audience falling unconscious . The movie was intended to toughen u

s up for seeing battle wounds we might soon have to view in reality . I never pa

ssed out because I had the sense to close my eyes at the worst parts , but the s

oundtrack wasn't so easy to shut out . I remember it too well . The trees in the

 American Cemetery are sculptured into dome shapes by the caretakers . Around th

e crosses and the stars , the grass is clipped with such miraculous care that no

t a straggling blade interrupts the whiteness of the marble . At a midpoint in t

he eye-filling expanse of perfectly ranked graves , there is a rotunda-shaped ch

apel , Jewish on one side , Christian on the other . On the day I linger in it ,

 a worker is meticulously polishing the shared marble altar . Outside , the rows

 of markers stretching in all directions affect the eye the way a chord on the s

trings of a great symphony orchestra caresses the ear . But the western boundary

 of the cemetery is a sudden drop of the land which drives home the irony that s

eparates the serene loveliness of the burial place from the ugliness which cause

d it to be . Down there is Omaha Beach . Nobody who drives out here from Caen , 

the ancient city that burned for 11 days 50 years ago and which is the likeliest

 takeoff point for pilgrims to the Normandy beaches , can be prepared for the sh

ock of viewing that downward plunge of the land . So much of Normandy is as flat

 as Nebraska that the visitor who traverses it thinking about the war shudders a

t the lack of cover no place to hide . Then at the stretch of coast whose code n

ame reverberates in history along with those of the great battle sites of all ti

me , the land dives precipitously to the sea . No photograph gives any idea of t

he steepness of those 150-foot bluffs or would it ever have been chosen as Omaha

 Beach ? Yet men made it under fire to the top . ( Begin optional trim ) Today e

ven the route of the climb has been mown and landscaped to harmonize with the ce

metery above . There are graded paths and benches for resting , but even so , on

e guesses that few of the World War II veterans who visit in this anniversary ye

ar will feel like trying the ascent at their present age . On the day I am here 

, I 'm surprised both that the visitors are so numerous and that almost nobody s

eems to be a contemporary of the men in the graves and of me . Admittedly it is 

no day to entice visitors at the rheumatic stage of life . It is cold for the ti

me of year , and there are heavy storm clouds hanging in the sky like black udde

rs leaking rain . There is a penetrating wind and a high chop on the channel of 

the sort dreaded by the planners of the amphibious invasion . Yet in the extensi

ve parking lots outside the cemetery grounds , there are nine tour buses and per

haps 100 automobiles . Not much English is heard . Observing the turnout in such

 weather , I think of the way Memorial Day is now treated at home . Americans ar

e not great at remembering . Those whose vacationing takes them to Normandy this

 summer may be jolted into it . ( End optional trim ) To make a first sweep of t