Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is a Second World War cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, overlooking Omaha Beach, dedicated on July 19, 1956, and administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Its buildings and grounds were designed by the architectural firm Harbeson, Hough, Livingston and Larson, with landscaping by Markley Stevenson, and the cemetery covers about 172.5 acres holding 9,389 graves of American service members who died in the Normandy landings and the subsequent Battle of Normandy. At the center of the memorial stands the bronze statue Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves by the sculptor Donald De Lue, set before a colonnade, while a memorial chapel nearby carries a mosaic ceiling by the muralist Leon Kroll and a curved Wall of the Missing records 1,557 further names. It is the most visited of the overseas cemeteries the American Battle Monuments Commission maintains, drawing roughly one million visitors each year.