World War II veterans are joining heads of state and others on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day
The Latest | D-Day’s 80th anniversary brings World War II veterans back to the beaches of NormandyBy The Associated PressThe Associated Press
World War II veterans are joining heads of state and others Thursday on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
The Allied invasion, which began on June 6, 1944, led to the defeat of the Nazis and the end of the war. The assault began with Allied aircraft bombing German defenses in Normandy, followed by around 1,200 aircraft that carried airborne troops. As dawn broke, Allied forces started bombing German coastal defenses and shortly after that vessels began putting troops ashore on five codenamed beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By the end of the day, nearly 160,000 Allied troops had landed in Normandy, although there were thousands of casualties.
Few witnesses to history’s biggest amphibious invasion remain alive today.
Currently:
— Hour by hour: A brief timeline of the Allies’ invasion of occupied France
— With time short, veterans seize the chance to keep their D-Day memories alive for others
— Women were barred from combat. But they helped D-Day succeed in other ways
— How AP covered the D-Day landings and lost a photographer in the battle for Normandy
— A Jewish veteran from London prepares to commemorate the 80th anniversary
Here’s the latest:
IMAGINING THE HORROR AND CELEBRATING FREEDOM
Because freedom is worth celebrating and passing on to children, too, Alexandra Hamon, 35, drank champagne and shared the sunrise with her boys, Karl and Neils, both 13, as the day dawned Thursday over the beaches where Allied soldiers landed on D-Day.
The family was among a crowd several thousands strong that stretched for kilometers along Utah beach — one of the five beaches along the coast of Normandy where Allied troops landed. Utah and Omaha were taken — at the cost of hundreds of lives — by American forces, with the others stormed by troops from Britain and Canada, also killing many hundreds, plus others from France. The other code-named beaches are Juno, Sword and Gold.
Karl sat perched on the hood of their 1943 Dodge truck, lovingly restored by her husband, Enogat, as the family from Saint Malo, a French coastal city that was badly damaged in major fighting about two months after D-Day, stared out across the English Channel.
The waters Thursday were still and peaceful — unlike on that fateful day that helped change the course of WWII and precipitate Adolf Hitler’s downfall 11 months later.
“It’s indescribable, just imagining the chaos. Now it’s peaceful, almost festive, we try to imagine but I think it’s unimaginable,” she said.
“You think of all those guys, everything they went through,” she added of the fast-dwindling D-Day veterans. “They say they aren’t heroes. But they are, they are. Those guys really should never die. I imagine the boats, the guys arriving, the sounds. It must have been horrible, yes, horrible.”
KEEPING ALIVE THE MEMORY OF SOLDIERS ‘WHO DIED FOR OUR FREEDOM’
UTAH BEACH, France — As the rising sun took the night’s chill off Utah Beach, Christophe Receveur, 57, from Thionville in eastern France, unfurled a Stars and Stripes he bought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, six months ago specifically to honor the Americans who fell on D-Day.
“To keep alive the memory of the soldiers who died for our freedom,” he said. “To forget them is to let them die all over again.”
Receveur and his daughter, Julie, 28, carefully folded the flag into a tight triangle after their quiet, reflective homage on an empty stretch of the beach, busy with hundreds of people strung out along the sands.
Receveur said the Ukraine war was on his mind, too, as he honored the fallen of WWII. His great grandfather fought in WWI, his grandfather was a prisoner of war in WWII, and his father was a veteran of France’s war in former North African colony Algeria.
“I don’t want our freedom, for our kids, our grandkids, to be hit by … I don’t want to say a madman,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “So a lot of respect for these people who died and for those who are still dying,” he said of the WWII dead and those in Ukraine.
He said the D-Day sacrifices have to be remembered. “Lots of emotion that all these troops came to liberate a country that they didn’t know for an ideology — democracy, freedom — that is under severe strain now.”
‘WE JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER THE SACRIFICES’
UTAH BEACH, France — As the golden sun pierced low clouds over the seas that were thick with landing craft approaching Normandy on D-Day, Becky Kraubetz peered across the English Channel toward her native Britain, her eyes filled with tears as she thought about the scene 80 years ago.
“It’s so historic and we just have to remember the sacrifices of everybody who gave us our freedom,” said Kraubetz, whose grandfather served with the British Army during World War II and was captured in Malta.
“It gives you goosebumps, everything that happened here. Imagine just jumping into the water, freezing cold,” said the 54-year-old who now lives in Florida, as the rays of the morning sun started to warm the hundreds of people who’d waited through the night’s chill for dawn’s break.
“The bravery, the courage, for people to face that is just unbelievable — very, very humbled to be here.”
THE SUN RISES OVER NORMANDY BEACHES AS THE WORLD REMEMBERS D-DAY
UTAH BEACH, France — As the sun sets on the D-Day generation, it’s rising again over Normandy beaches where soldiers fought and died exactly 80 years ago, kicking off intense anniversary commemorations Thursday against the backdrop of renewed war in Europe, in Ukraine.
Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, make this anniversary particularly meaningful, mixing poignant remembrances for D-Day sacrifices with an Allied show of solidarity for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among the guests.
But host France hasn’t invited World War II ally Russia, citing its “war of aggression against Ukraine that has intensified in recent weeks.”
HUNDREDS GATHER AT DAWN AT UTAH BEACH TO MARK D-DAY’S 80TH ANNIVERSARY
UTAH BEACH, France — Hundreds of people, some in WWII-era uniforms, arrived before dawn to stretch out across the now peaceful sands of Utah Beach, one of the five Allied landing zones on D-Day where troops waded into cold seas through hails of fire exactly 80 years ago.
“It’s our way of paying homage, and better understanding what really happened in the 1944 landings,” said Dimitri Picot, a 33-year-old from the nearby Normandy town of Carentan who works as a rat and pest catcher.
Picot said he often dives on a wrecked ship that was hit and exploded, its wreckage visible Thursday as night gave way to day. Growing up amid the June 6, 1944, landing zones, he said he has become accustomed to seeing walls still pockmarked by bullets, shrapnel and other reminders of that fateful day.
But on the 80th anniversary “to think that they liberated us” hammered home the emotion, he said.
