Saturday, June 06, 2009

D-Day + 65 years

On June 6, 1944, In what remains the biggest amphibious assault in history, some 156,000 Allied personnel landed in France in an effort to free Europe from the Nazis. An estimated 10,000 Allied troops were left dead, wounded or missing. Now with most aged 85 or more; this may be the last time large numbers of ex-servicemen can attend D-Day ceremonies.

British PM Gordon Brown, Prince Charles, US President Barack Obama, Canadian PM Steven Harper and French President Nicolas Sarkozy attended a major commemoration event at the Normandy America cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day and a remembrance service at Bayeux Cathedral, Bayeux for British veterans to remember those who fought and died in the Normandy landings.

"At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found within themselves the ability to do something extraordinary," President Obama said. "Had the Allies failed here, Hitler's occupation of this continent might have continued indefinitely."

Mr Brown said: "As long as freedom lives their debts will never die." He said it was an "honour" to speak for the British people on this day which marks the "triumph of right over wrong, truth over lies, the victory of human decency over hatred and the Holocaust". Brown said Europe and America were allies "not for a season but for centuries" and added: "In June 1944 in this place and at that moment Europe and America came closer together than at any time and any country."

A total of 9,387 US servicemen are buried at Colleville's American Cemetery, 307 whose names are unknown. Their resting place overlooks Omaha beach, the last and toughest beach to capture on D-Day. Among veterans and their families were WWII hero and Senator, Bob Dole and Tom Hanks who starred in the film Saving Private Ryan which dramatises the horror of the Omaha landing.

3 comments:

Brown out now said...

We owe a debt to every single veteran of this War; the current UK PM is not fit to clean their boots. Many will be turning in their graves at what he's doing.
He failed to manage to get the Queen or Duke of Edinburgh invited (both members of the armed forces at the time), and used the whole thing as a photo-op to be seen with the Obamessiah.
*pauses to puke*


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahyIaZgNaNQ

Must be tricky, getting those names right.

Brown out now said...

Brown link

Sorry, didn't link 1st time.

vaughan said...

Ok I don't care anymore if I offend any democrats on this forum but it is taking the flaming biscuit when the french press rechristened Omaha Beach "Obama" beach because he turned up...way to go guys how to belittle a moment in history where Americans laid down their lives so you could be free .....I swear you know there are days I can understand why the Colonel despises the ungrateful.........