On the Memorial’s platform, immediately to the West of the colonnade, is a 7-metre-high bronze statue symbolizing ‘the Spirit of American Youth emerging from the Waves’. Around its base, one can read this inscription: ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’ Sculpted by Donald De Lue, from New York City, the bronze was cast by the Battaglia foundry in Milan in 1955. The Memorial was built out of Vaurion stone, quarried in the Côte d’Or, while its steps are made out of granite from Ploumanach in Brittany. The platform between the loggias is paved with pebbles collected on Omaha Beach, at the foot of the cliff.