A lonely remembrance for one veteran
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — At daybreak on Saturday, Charles Shay stood alone, without any fellow veteran on the beach where he waded ashore 76 years ago, part of one of the most epic battles in military history that came to be known as D-Day and turned the tide of the Second World War.
Compared with last year, when many tens of thousands of people came to the northern French beaches of Normandy to cheer the dwindling number of veterans and celebrate three-quarters of a century of liberation from Nazi oppression, the coronavirus lockdown turned this year’s remembrance into one of the eeriest.
“I am very sad now,” said Shay, who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach under horrific machinegun fire and shells. “Because of the virus, nobody can be here. I would like to see more of us here,” he said.
Normally, 95-year-old Shay would be meeting other survivors of the 1944 battle and celebrating with locals and dignitaries alike, all not far from his home close to the beaches that defined his life. “This year, I am one of the very few that is here,” he said.
When a full moon disappeared over land and the sun rose the other side over the English Channel, there was no customary rumble of columns of vintage jeep and trucks to be heard, roads still so deserted hare sat alongside them.
Still the French would not let this day slip by unnoticed, such is their attachment to 160,000 soldiers from Canada, the United States, Britain and other allied countries who spilled their blood to free foreign beaches and fight on to finally defeat Nazism almost one year later.
“It’s a June 6 unlike any other,” said Philippe Laillier, the mayor of Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer, who staged a small remembrance around the Omaha Beach monument. “But still we had to do something. We had to mark it.”
The moment the sun broke over the ocean, the Omaha Beach theme from the film Saving Private Ryan blared across the sand for a few dozen locals and visitors dressed in vintage clothing.
The pandemic poses a particular threat to the elderly, including the surviving D-Day veterans who are in their late nineties or older.
It has also affected the younger generations who turn out every year to mark the occasion. Most were barred from travelling to the windswept coasts of Normandy.
The lack of a big international crowd was palpable. A flyover of French fighter jets left a trail of the national colours, but only a sparse crowd was present to see it. At the American cemetery on a bluff overseeing Omaha Beach, Shay went to pay his respects to more than 9,000 servicemen, and again was the lone U.S. veteran at an intimate ceremony.
Ivan Thierry, 62, a local fisherman, said: “Even if we are only a dozen, we are here to commemorate.”