Few to mourn D-Day’s dead in Normandy on 76th anniversary
Pandemic keeping almost everyone away, including veterans and politicians
SAINT-LAURENT-SUR-MER, FRANCE—At least the dead will always be there.
All too many have been, for 76 years since that fateful June 6 on France’s Normandy beaches, when Allied troops in 1944 turned the course of the Second World War and went on to defeat fascism in Europe in one of the most remarkable feats in military history.
Forgotten they will never be. Revered, yes. But Saturday’s anniversary will be one of the loneliest remembrances ever, as the coronavirus pandemic is keeping almost everyone away — from government leaders to frail veterans who might not get another chance for a final farewell to their unlucky comrades.
Rain and wind are also forecast, after weeks of warm, sunny weather.
“I miss the others,” said Charles Shay, who as a U.S. army medic was in the first wave of soldiers to wade ashore at Omaha Beach under relentless fire on D-Day.
Shay, 95, lives in France close to the beach where he and so many others landed in 1944. He knows of no U.S. veterans making the trip overseas to observe D-Day this year.
“I guess I will be alone here this year,” Shay said before he performed a Native American ritual to honour his comrades by spreading the smoke of burning white sage into the winds lashing the Normandy coast Friday.
The eerie atmosphere touches the French as well.
“The sadness is almost too much, because there is no one,” local guide Adeline James said. “Plus you have their stories. The history is sad and it’s even more overwhelming now between the weather, the (virus) situation and, and, and.”
The locals in this part of France have come out year after year to show their gratitude for the soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries who liberated them from Nazi forces.
Despite the lack of international crowds, David Pottier still went out to raise American flags in the Calvados village of Mosles, population 356, which was liberated by Allied troops the day after the landing on five Normandy beachheads.
In a forlorn scene, a gardener tended to the parched grass around the small monument for the war dead, while Pottier, the local mayor, was getting the French tricolour to flutter next to the Stars and Stripes.