We are Americans, and we are Jews. We have family members who fought, and family members who suffered and even perished in the evil of the Shoa. We needed to visit the D-Day landing sites in Normandy.

"It’s hard to believe but I saw that beach bounce. I could just see it vibrating," said Don Buswell of Ogden, who was aboard a landing craft at Utah Beach on D-Day, in a 2005 interview with KUED.

Friday marks 81 years since D-Day, the first day of the Normandy landings that laid the foundations for the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

CNN Editorial Research (CNN) — Here is a look at D-Day. Allied troops invaded Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, to fight Nazi Germany in World War II. Facts The largest amphibious (land and ...