Yes, the shingle is all the slate and stone that is piled up along the high tide line. From eons of stormy Atlantic waves. You don’t see that stuff on swimming beaches in Florida of course. Only ones that have a lot of limestone cliffs and that kind of thing. But even on nice beaches there is that line of shell and stones right where the water meets the beach that stays dry.

Anyway, D-Day was a big confusion. Because of the post-storm tides most units landed off course and had no idea where they were exactly. They did not have satellites and cell phones and all that. One part of the beach had no idea what other parts were doing. Communication with the ships off shore was spotty at best.

Some Americans landed at Omaha and had light or no casualties because certain cliffs stuck out and blocked the view of the closest enemy troops, or because the smoke from destroyed ships or vehicles screened their advance. Others 200 yards away were butchered.

Some Americans faced Polish and French conscripts who only stayed in the trenches because a German sergeant was there with a machine pistol at their backs. Other Americans faced crack units of an elite force that had just spent a year fighting in Russia and was in fact on training exercises that morning in full field gear. (Similarly some Airborne units – like the Band of Brothers guys -landed in and around the veteran German paratroops that were also in Normandy on filed maneuvers.)

The units that were pinned down thought the whole Invasion had failed, the units that got off the bluffs by noon thought it was the same way for everyone else.

Despite the fact the units at the far right (where Tom Hanks and Co. landed) had some of the worst of it they also were among the few units that actually reached and secured their objectives, which happened to be a particularly strategic point looking over the beach head. Most other units at Omaha did not reach their inland objectives until days later.