Macron thanks WWII veterans
WITH silent remembrance and respect, nations honoured the fallen and the singular bravery of all Allied troops who sloshed through bloodied water to the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago on D-Day, the assault that portended the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.
French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump praised the soldiers, sailors and airmen, the survivors and those who lost their lives, in powerful speeches yesterday that credited the June 6, 1944, surprise air and sea operation that brought tens of thousands of men to Normandy, each not knowing whether he would survive the day.
“You are the pride of our nation, you are the glory of our republic and we thank you from the bottom of our heart,” Trump said, of the warriors engaged in the ultimate fight of good against evil in World War II.
Macron praised their courage that made them press on “to help men and women they didn’t know, to liberate a land most hadn’t seen before, for no other cause but freedom, democracy”.
He expressed France’s debt to the US for freeing his country from the reign of the Nazis. Macron awarded five American veterans with the Chevalier of Legion of Honor, France’s highest award. “We know what we owe to you, veterans, our freedom,” he said. “On behalf of my nation, I just want to say ‘thank you’.”
D-Day was history’s largest air and sea invasion, involving around 160 000 troops on that day itself and many more in the ensuing Battle of Normandy. Of those, 73 000 were from the US, while 83000 were from Britain and Canada. Troops started landing overnight from the air, then were joined by a massive force by sea on the beaches codenamed Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7 000 boats.
The second day of ceremonies moved to France after commemorations a day earlier in Portsmouth, England, the main embarkation point for the transport boats.
At dawn, hundreds of people from around the world gathered at the water’s edge to remember the troops who stormed the fortified Normandy beaches.
Up to 12000 people gathered just hours later at the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery, where Macron and Trump spoke. US veterans, their numbers fast diminishing as years pass, were the guests of honour.
Britain’s Prince Charles, his wife, Camilla, and Prime Minister Theresa May attended a remembrance service at the medieval cathedral in Bayeux, the first Normandy town liberated by Allied troops after D-Day. Cardinal Marc Ouellet read a message from Pope Francis honouring those who “gave their lives for freedom and peace”.
Hundreds of people packed the seaside square in the town of Arromanches to applaud veterans of the Battle of Normandy.
Macron thanked those who did not survive the assault “so that France could become free again” at an earlier ceremony overlooking Gold Beach with May and uniformed veterans, to lay the cornerstone of a memorial that will record the names of thousands of troops under British command who died on D-Day.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking at Juneau Beach where 14 000 Canadians landed, lauded the resulting world order, including the UN and Nato.
The Battle of Normandy cost the lives of 4 414 Allied troops, 2501 of them Americans. More than 5000 were injured. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.
From there, Allied troops would advance, take Paris and march in a race with the Soviet Red Army to control as much German territory as possible by the time Hitler died in his Berlin bunker in May 1945.
The Soviet Union also fought against the Nazis – and lost more people than any other nation in World War II – but those final battles would divide Europe for decades.