I hope this is the correct subreddit for this post. As the title states, my great uncle fought with the US Army during the Normandy Beach landings on D-Day. My family is traveling to Normandy next month and we would like to visit the beach that he fought at. We believe his rank was Captain and he was a medical officer with the US Army Medical Corps. He did survive the war but we weren’t able to find out if he fought at Omaha or Utah Beach. His name was William James. Thank you.
If you can discover the unit he served with you can learn the beach his unit landed on. Each unit was assigned a certain landing area and historical records should provide that information. The information may be referred to as "Order of Battle". With the unit designation you can learn what day his until landed in France, whether on D-Day or D-Day plus 1 or later. However, an artificial dock was constructed shortly after D-Day so a beach landing might not be applicable. There may be online records of his unit roster listing all personnel assigned to the unit. Doctors generally enter service as a captain, nurses as lieutenants. Unit records could track the units movement to the end of the war.
Hello there! As your question is related to looking for identification/information regarding military personnel, our Guide on Military Identification may be of use to you. It provides a number of different resources, including how to request service records from a number of national agencies around the world, as well as graphical aids to assist in deciphering rank, unit, and other forms of badges or insignia. While the users here may still be able to lend you more assistance, hopefully this will provide a good place to start!