Troops and crewmen aboard a Coast Guard manned LCVP as it approaches a Normandy beach on "D-Day", 6 June 1944. (U.S. Coast Guard Collection in the U.S. National Archives)
In honor of the Coast Guard’s 224th Birthday, all active duty or veteran Coast Guard members receive free admission to the Memorial today.
During the Normandy invasion of 6 June 1944, a 60-cutter flotilla of wooden WPB 83-foot Coast Guard cutters, nicknamed the "Matchbox Fleet", cruised off all five landing beaches as combat search-and-rescue boats, saving 400 Allied airmen and sailors. Division O-1, including the Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase (APA-26), landed the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division on Omaha Beach. Off Utah Beach, the Coast Guard manned the command ship USS Bayfield (APA-33). Several Coast Guard-manned landing craft were lost during D-Day to enemy fire and heavy seas. In addition, a cutter was beached during the storms off the Normandy coast which destroyed the U.S.-operated Mulberry harbor.