August 22-23, 2014 - Commemorating the 70th Anniversary, D-Day Ohio Recreates the Normandy Landings with the Largest WWII Reenactment of its Kind in the United States

    CONNEAUT, OH, August 14, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- D-Day Conneaut is now America's largest WWII reenactment with over 1400 reenactors from all over the United States and Canada. D-Day Conneaut is not only the premier WWII living history event, it is a cultural, historical, and highly authentic reenactment of the days and weeks leading up to and including the Invasion of France. This annual event is free to the public, highly realistic, and educational.

See the men, women, and their machines. See how they trained and lived. Experience three mock battles. Explore fully working Allied and Axis camps complete with troops and their equipment. View numerous living history displays with reenactors depicting medical units, weapons depots, field kitchens, the Red Cross, war photographers, and radio switchboards and communication stations.

Watch demonstrations on tactics and firing of weapons including the only live firing German 88 in the United States. See the vehicles they used including a 1944 M4-A3 Sherman Tank, DUKW amphibious craft, Amtrak, and multiple working Higgins boats.

Come meet WWII veterans who served and hear their stories. Last year over 125 WWII veterans attended the event as our honored guests. This year we are honored to have an official pinning of the Legion of Honor. Dignitaries representing the Unites States, Canada, France and Norway will participate in the ceremony and address the crowd on Saturday commencing at 12:00pm.

View Friday afternoon aerial show as our planes rehearse for the main event on Saturday. See 3/4 scale T-51 mustangs and a fully restored B-25 Bomber fly over the beaches on Saturday.

Each year reenactors from as far away as California and Canada make the pilgrimage (at their own expense) to Conneaut to keep the stories alive and honor those who gave so much.

With over 1400 reenactors in attendance, D-Day Conneaut is the largest US reenactment of the European Theater of Operations and D-Day Normandy invasion and now the largest WWII reenactment in the country.

Since 1999, this re-creation of the events surrounding the allied landings on the coast of Normandy, France has thrilled tens of thousands of spectators and now boasts a yearly event attendance over 20,000.

The event occurs within the beautifully kept grounds of Conneaut Township Park, in Conneaut, Ohio, near the border of Ohio/Pennsylvania, just off Interstate 90. Conneaut's 250 yard long beach and sloping adjacent terrain, where the main battle reenactment takes place, closely resemble Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. Other areas of the park provide secluded venues for recreations of inland skirmishes between the occupying German soldiers, French resistance fighters, and Allied parachute and Glider infantry. For more information visit: www.ddayohio.us.

D-Day Conneaut's mission is to educate the public about the sacrifice of those who fought and those who died on the beaches of Normandy, June 6, 1944 and to encourage remembrance, honor, and respect for the soldiers of the Allied and Axis armies of World War II.

Through the encampments, battle reenactments, lectures, displays and tours, the public gains an understanding of the events that occurred prior to June 6, 1944, and the sacrifices made during and after the invasion.

# # #