• Allied Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in France on D-Day.falaises d'etretat en normandie image by porschelegend from Fotolia.com
  
  D-Day monuments are located in the United States, England and France. These monuments commemorate the start of the liberation of Europe by the Allied Forces during World War II. Some of these monuments stand as reminders of events that transpired in particular areas on D-Day, which was June 6, 1944. Many of the monuments marking this day are in France, and are located on the beaches where the soldiers landed and in the cemeteries near where many of them died and were buried.
  
  

The National D-Day Memorial in Virginia, United States

• The National D-Day Memorial is a place where D-Day is remembered, a tribute to the valor and sacrifice of the Allied Forces. The U.S. Congress established the Memorial at Bedford, Virginia, because that community suffered the biggest per capita losses on D-Day. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the memorial is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The entry fee as of 2010 was $7 per adult and $5 per child, 6 years and older. Group tours and rates are available. The facility is mostly outdoors and site policies are strictly enforced.
  
  

The D-Day Memorial in Dorset, England

• This monument is made of Portland stone and was erected in 1947, dedicated to all the troops who participated in the D-Day operation. It is on the Sea Front Esplanade in Weymouth, and is comprised of an octagonal pedestal where a bell rings at 11 a.m. every day. A light on its upper part is never switched off. Weymouth featured prominently in the D-Day landings, with many troops having left English shores from here. This memorial opposite the Royal Hotel records that more than one-half million troops and nearly 150,000 vehicles embarked at Weymouth from D-Day on May 7, 1945. In 1999, 2002 and 2004, plaques commemorating the involvement of U.S. troops during World War II were added to the memorial.
  
  

The Church of St. Mere Eglise, France

• The first town to be liberated by the Allied Forces on D-Day was St. Mere Eglise in France. At midnight of that day, airborne rangers parachuted into the town's countryside to secure key bridges and intersections. One paratrooper's parachute caught on the spire of the town's church. Unable to cut himself loose, the paratrooper hung there until dawn when the Germans spotted him and shot him. This episode was re-enacted in many movies later. In St. Mere Eglise, a parachute hangs on the steeple wall of the church with the statue of an American paratrooper dangling below it, a memorial to the soldier, to the liberation of the town and to D-Day.