From Military.com:
“World Marks 75 Years Since D-Day
in Solemn Observances “
The five beaches are silent at
dawn but forever haunted. As the sun rose Thursday over the Normandy coastline
where thousands of men bled and died 75 years ago, a fast-diminishing number of
World War II veterans remembered D-Day and hoped the world never forgets the
sacrifices made to dismantle Nazi tyranny. The sea of mercury blue couldn't
have been more peaceful as day broke over Omaha Beach, the first of five
code-named beaches where the waters ran red the morning of June 6, 1944, when
Allied forces came ashore to push the Nazis out of France. Hundreds of people,
civilians and military alike, hailing from around the world, gathered at the
water's edge, remembering the troops who stormed the fortified Normandy beaches
to help turn the tide of the war and give birth to a new Europe, since at
peace. On the western edge of Omaha, dense crowds formed a human chain and
tossed red and white chrysanthemums into the gently lapping waves, remembering.
Veterans' descendants spoke about family members who fought on the beach and
laid red roses at the feet of a statue of an infantryman clutching a rifle and
hauling a fallen comrade. A lone piper played in Mulberry Harbor, exactly 75
years after British troops came ashore at Gold Beach. "It is sobering,
surreal to be able to stand here on this beach and admire the beautiful sunrise
where they came ashore, being shot at, facing unspeakable atrocities,"
said 44-year-old former U.S. paratrooper Richard Clapp, of Julian, North
Carolina. After Britain's spirited anniversary tribute Wednesday to the
derring-do of the Allied forces that set off from England to defend democracy,
France is hosting a series of solemn ceremonies Thursday in the country where
so many young lives ended in sand and sea.
Gratitude was a powerful common
theme.
"Thank you to all those who
were killed so that France could become free again," French President
Emmanuel Macron said Thursday, standing with British Prime Minister Theresa May
and uniformed veterans overlooking Gold Beach. They were taking part in a
ceremony laying the cornerstone of a new memorial that will record the names of
thousands of troops under British command who died on D-Day and ensuing Battle
of Normandy. "If one day can be said to have determined the fate of
generations to come, in France, in Britain, in Europe and the world, that day
was the 6th of June, 1944," May said. "As the sun rose that
morning," she said, note one of the thousands of men arriving in Normandy
"knew whether they would still be alive when the sun set once again."
To the veterans, she said "the only words we can - thank you." Dick
Jansen, 60, from the Netherlands, drank Canadian whisky from an enamel cup on
the water's edge, where people held moments of silence and some saluted. "Every
time we come here, we drink at the moment they came onto the beach, a whisky
for the guys who came no further," he said. Norwegian Sigrid Flaata drove
from Oslo in a 1942 restored jeep to honor the soldiers who died on D-Day.
Belgian Filip Van Hecke called his journey a "small effort to pay
homage." Passing on memories is especially urgent, with hundreds of World
War II veterans now dying every day.
A group of five Americans
parachuted into Normandy on Wednesday as part of a commemorative jump, and
showed up on the beach Thursday morning still wearing their jumpsuits, all
World War II-era uniforms, and held an American flag. All five said they fear
that the feats and sacrifices of D-Day are being forgotten. French President
Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump will look out over Omaha Beach, the
scene of the bloodiest fighting, from the cemetery with grave markers for over
9,000 Americans, servicemen who established a blood bond between the U.S. and
its trans-Atlantic allies. "I have all kinds of friends buried," said
William Tymchuk, 98, who served with the 4th Canadian Armored Division during
some of the deadliest fighting of the brutal campaign after the Normandy
landings. "They were young. They got killed. They couldn't come
home," Tymchuk, who was back in Normandy, continued. "Sorry," he
said, tearing up. "They couldn't even know what life is all about." The
biggest-ever air and seaborne invasion took place on D-Day, involving more than
150,000 troops that day itself and many more in the ensuing Battle of Normandy.
Troops started landing overnight from the air, then were joined by a massive
force by sea on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold,
carried by 7,000 boats. In that defining moment of military strategy confounded
by unpredictable weather and human chaos, soldiers from the U.S., Britain,
Canada and other Allied nations applied relentless bravery to carve out a
beachhead on ground that Nazi Germany had occupied for four years. "The
tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory," Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower predicted in his order of the day. The
Battle of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord, hastened Germany's defeat
less than a year later. Still, that single day cost the lives of 4,414 Allied
troops, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were injured. On the German
side, several thousand were killed or wounded. From there, Allied troops would
advance their fight, take Paris in late summer and march in a race against the
Soviet Red Army to control as much German territory as possible by the time
Adolf Hitler died in his Berlin bunker and Germany surrendered in May 1945. The
Soviet Union also fought valiantly against the Nazis — and lost more people
than any other nation in World War II — but those final battles would divide
Europe for decades between the West and the Soviet-controlled East, the
face-off line of the Cold War. "The heroism, courage and sacrifice of
those who lost their lives will never be forgotten," said Queen Elizabeth,
who was an army mechanic during World War II while her father George was king.
"It is with humility and pleasure, on behalf of the entire country —
indeed the whole free world — that I say to you all, thank you."
^ A fitting way to remember the
75th Anniversary. People around the world tend to forget the service
and sacrifice these men and women did. ^
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