Sunday Mass on Omaha Beach
80 Years Ago Today. 23 June 1944. Original Caption: “Combat engineers kneel in prayer at a mass conducted by Chaplain (1st Lt.) Paul J. McGovern, Boston, Mass., former pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Danvers, Mass. The first American cemetery to be constructed in France is in the center background.”
Original Field Number: ETO-HQ-44-5908. SC No. 111-SC-400327. Photographer: Weintraub. National Archives Identifier 176888746
Note the barrage balloons over the beachhead to the right, the Dodge WC truck in the distance, persistent barbed wire entanglements, and what looks like a DUKW to the left.
Closer views and from different angles.
The longest, most heavily defended, and bloodiest of the five D-Day beach sectors in Normandy, U.S. forces suffered 2,400 casualties to take the sand and had 34,000 troops ashore by nightfall.