The Navy SEAL Museum in Florida, alongside Virginia Beach firm Clark Nexsen and North Carolina firm Studio X Design, dedicated a D-Day monument park last week at Normandy’s Omaha Beach in France in honor of the 80th anniversary of the historic invasion.
The Virginia Beach and North Carolina architect and design firms were recruited by the museum to bring the monument park to life. The design of the park aims not to memorialize a single tragic moment in time, but rather to celebrate and recognize the actions of everyone on June 6, 1944, said Matt Pearson, architect and founding principal for Studio X Design.
“This is a celebration. This isn’t meant to be a somber place. That said, people can feel whatever emotive qualities they want to, but it’s meant to be a celebration and acknowledgement of what they did on that day,” Pearson said.
Situated on the dune precipice of the Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer shoreline at Omaha Beach, U.S. Naval Combat Demolition Units/Scouts and Raiders Monument Park overlooks the D-Day landing zone known as Dog Red. French sandstone slabs inscribed with the events of June 6, 1944, line the park, encircling a hedgehog barrier, an obstacle made of angled metal beams designed to stop tanks. The original obstacle sits in sand gathered from locations all over the world where demolition units and Navy SEALs served in combat.
Adjacent to the hedgehog barrier, a demolitioneer in combat gear, sculpted from an 8-foot-tall granite pillar, illustrates what members of the units looked like. Stone benches wrap around the perimeter of the monument park’s 7,500 square feet, shaded by canopy trees overlooking Omaha Beach where troops came ashore 80 years ago.
“It began as a small granite marker and now it is an interactive place that you can walk through,” said Erin Horton, senior landscape architect for Clark Nexsen.
The naval combat demolition units were among those tasked with clearing 50-yard gaps on Omaha Beach to land the planned 2,000 troops an hour for the D-Day invasion, according to the Navy SEAL Museum. One of the first teams ashore was wiped out as it landed, and another lost all but one man as it prepared to set off explosive charges. Of the 175 members at Omaha Beach, 37 were killed and 71 wounded — a casualty rate of more than half, the museum said.
The survivors succeeded in clearing five main channels and three partial channels of obstacles before the rising tide forced them to withdraw. By the end of the day, one-third of the obstacles had been destroyed or removed.
“June 6, 1944, was the worst day in what would later become Naval Special Warfare history and there was nothing to commemorate what these men did,” said retired Capt. Rick Woolard, chairman of the Navy SEAL Museum.
The naval combat demolition unit training school was formed in 1943 in Fort Pierce, Florida, with the first class being volunteers pulled from the bomb and mine disposal school in Washington, and the Civil Engineer Corps and Naval Construction Training Center at Camp Peary near Williamsburg, according to the museum.
The monument park also honors the Amphibious Scouts & Raiders Unit, a joint Army and Navy team that formed in 1942 at Virginia Beach’s Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, then called Amphibious Training Base Little Creek. The Scouts & Raiders conducted pre-assault operations at Normandy several weeks before D-Day. On June 6, 1944, they were tasked with guiding assault waves to the beaches.
“The weather was terrible. There was a strong longshore current. There were the obstacles and heavy German fire,” Woolard said, describing what the troops faced. “But they managed to get ashore and establish a foothold by the end of the day, which enabled the rest of the invasion to continue and, eventually, the Nazis to be defeated.”
Woolard, a Virginia Beach resident, served as a Navy SEAL for 30 years. He was assigned to Virginia Beach-based SEAL teams multiple times across his three-decade career, including serving as commanding officer for Naval Special Warfare Development Group — or SEAL Team 6 — from 1987-90.
The concept of the park began two years ago, Woolard said. The museum spearheaded the monument and hosted a fundraising campaign to cover the $2 million cost. Overall, the project involved dozens of partners from the U.S. and France. Clark Nexsen was selected, Woolard said, because of the work the company did on the Navy SEAL monument at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront boardwalk in 2017.
The goal, Woolard said, was to complete the monument park in time for the 80th anniversary of D-Day so people who were on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, could have the opportunity to be part of the dedication. The park was complete in 20 months — an impressive feat, Woolard said.
“Something like this should have taken about five years,” Woolard said. “But there was a sense of urgency to get this done.”
As people visit Omaha Beach, the monument park is intended to serve as living history, Woolard said. Notably, the monument park at Omaha Beach incorporates QR codes so that the monument can be expanded beyond the granite slabs. Laser-etched on the monuments, the QR codes can be scanned by a smartphone that will lead visitors to a website with additional historical information.
The park is adjacent to a German bunker, which Pearson said played a role in the selection of the location.
“It is more than experiencing the monument. It is also about looking out and seeing just how long these beaches were at low tide when they came ashore and all the bunkers and the obstacles they had to fight through,” Pearson said.
The monument park sits at a confluence of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. It is also about 500 yards from the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France. The cemetery site, first established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944, was the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.
Woolard said he hopes visitors will honor the dead, but also recognize “the deed.”
“This is what it takes to have freedom. We did this as a nation 80 years ago, but we need to appreciate today the sacrifice and the courage required to do what was done on the beaches,” Woolard said. “We would like to never have to do that again, but we need to recognize the magnitude of it, should we ever have to do it again.”
Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com
