It might be my imagination, but it seems to me that on this 80th anniversary of D-Day the number of commemorative articles, documentaries, videos, etc. about that War, about that Day and, most of all, about those men who fought and died that Day is greater than ever, and their nature more reflective and more nostalgic.
Perhaps it is a harking back to the Greatest Generation, to what they stood and died for, as Roger Cohen alludes to (“Today their sacrifices loom over a newly precarious times”) in his New York Times’ “D-Day at 80,” Veterans of the pivotal battle of World War II are disappearing. Europe, facing new conflict, recalls what their comrades died for.
Here are just a few of those articles. I hope you will have the time to read or browse through some of them.
New York Times:
• “Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the pivotal World War II battle on beaches in Normandy. Few veterans of the battle are alive.”
• “Why we must keep the memory of D-Day alive.” — “Day by passing day, the Greatest Generation is coming toward its end. D-Day, June 6, 1944, had more than two million Allied personnel on the move across Operation Overlord, and today perhaps a few thousand veterans remain.”
• “For Heroes of D-Day, This Reunion Might Be a ‘Last Hurrah’” — “It is 80 years since the Allied invasion of Normandy, and the average age of veterans hovers at 100. Once they are gone, how will their sacrifices be remembered?”
Associated Press:
• “Dwindling number of D-Day veterans mark anniversary with plea to recall WWII lessons in today’s wars.” — “As young soldiers, they waded ashore in Normandy through gunfire to battle the Nazis. On Thursday, a dwindling number of World War II veterans were joined by a new generation of leaders to honor the dead, the living and the fight for democracy in moving commemorations on and around those same beaches where they landed exactly 80 years ago on D-Day.”
• “D-Day anniversary shines spotlight on ‘Rosies’ who built WWII weapons.” — “When the 5,000th B-17 bomber built after Pearl Harbor rolled out of its Boeing factory, teenage riveter Anna Mae Krier made sure it would carry a message from the women of World War II: She signed her name on it.”
• “Last WW II vets converge on Omaha Beach for D-Day and fallen friends.” — “Under their feet, the sands of Omaha Beach, and in their rheumy eyes, tears that inevitably flowed from being on the revered shoreline in Normandy, France, where so many American young men were cut down 80 years ago on D-Day.”
• “Centenarian vets are sharing their memories of D-Day, 80 years later.” — “World War II veterans from the United States, Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat.”
• “Remembering with sadness, the British D-Day veterans recall the war they saw and knew.”
Reuters:
• “D-Day: Key facts about the Allied landings at Normandy.”
Las Vegas Review-Journal:
• “‘Sky aglow with fire and death’: Pilot’s letter describes D-Day landing.”
• “‘It feels very lonely’: 80 years after D-Day, only 2 USS Nevada crew members remain”
PBS:
• “D-Day veterans return to Normandy for 80th anniversary of Allied invasion.”
NPR:
“They were there on D-Day, on the beaches and in the skies. This is what they saw.”
The National WW II Museum:
• “D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe.” — “In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord.”
U.S. Department of Defense:
• “Remembering D-Day.”
Stars and Stripes
• “Four Women are buried among several thousand men at the US D-Day cemetery. These are their stories.”
• “Remembering ‘Marty’s war’: Normandy landing, escaping the Nazis and a bullet through the ankle.” — “Martin ‘Marty’ Sylvester didn’t find things so bad at Utah Beach when he landed on June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day. His life would get a lot worse.”
• “Voices of D-Day: Veterans describe the heroism and horror.” — “Army Rangers who climbed perilous cliff to silence German guns remembered ahead of D-Day anniversary.”
Army.mil:
• “Operation Overlord” — “June 6 1944 Immediately after France fell to the Nazis in 1940, the Allies planned a cross-Channel assault on German occupying forces. The opening invasion of the liberation of France would ultimately code-named Operation Overlord.”
• “Paratrooper helped liberate French town portrayed in epic film.” — “On D-Day, June 6, 1944, paratroopers of the U.S. Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions landed between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. near and in the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise in Normandy, France. The paratroopers figure prominently in the 1962 film ‘The Longest Day…'”
Military Times:
• “A brief timeline of the Allies’ D-Day invasion of occupied France.”
• “Centenarian vets are sharing their memories of D-Day, 80 years later.”
• “Last WWII vets converge on Omaha Beach for D-Day and fallen friends.” — “Vets, many of them centenarians and likely returning for one last time, pilgrimaged to what was the bloodiest of five Allied landings on June 6, 1944.”
Air Force Times :
• “Remembering D-Day: Key facts about the invasion that altered WWII.”
• “A brief timeline of the Allies’ D-Day invasion of occupied France.”
Task & Purpose:
• “Black Army medic who saved 200 troops on D-Day awarded Distinguished Service Cross.”
• “How America captured a German submarine right before D-Day.” — “Several American sailors climbed aboard the German submarine U-505, focused on saving it from sinking into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. They did not know if the Nazi submariners who dove overboard had set scuttling charges beforehand, but the risk was worth it: the wealth of intelligence on board could help them acquire and decipher the elusive Enigma machine.”
Military.com:
• “D-Day: Perhaps the Most Pivotal Day in World War II.”
• “What Ike remembered when returning to the beaches of Normandy 20 years after D-Day.”
• “‘Incredibly Emotional’: Navy Veteran, 100, Recalls D-Day on USS Nevada.” — “Dick Ramsey was on board the USS Nevada off the coast of France during the Allied invasion on D-Day, June 6, 1944 — 2½ years after the battleship nearly sank in shallow water at Pearl Harbor during the infamous attack by Japanese airplanes.”
Politico.com
• “As Lonely as a Man Can Get’: The True Story of D-Day, as Told by Paratroopers.” — “The men who leaped from planes into the world’s greatest battle tell their harrowing story, in their own words.”
CNN:
• “‘Sorry for throwing grenades in your cellar.’ The unusual fate of the first house liberated in D-Day beach landings.”– “Their target was an elegant, two-story villa sitting solitary on a misty beach. No houses stood nearby, just minefields, military pillboxes and enemy machine gun posts.”
• “In Normandy’s once-blood drenched beaches, echoes of history.”
I also recommend reading the book “D-DAY GIRLS: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II.”
If you have time, watch one of the movies recommended here: “The 6 best D-Day movies to watch for the Allied landings anniversary.” — “From ‘Overlord’ to ‘Saving Private Ryan…”
Finally, if you have still more time, please watch the fantastic series, Masters of the Air, on Apple TV.
Finally, finally, please read Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “We Cannot Repeat the Mistakes of the 1930s.” — “On this day in 1944, the liberation of Western Europe began with immense sacrifice. ..”
