Normandy D-Day commemorations muted by pandemic

A memorial to the 22,442 British-led fallen was unveiled Sunday at the Normandy hillside village of Ver-sur-Mer, overlooking what on D-Day in 1944 was code-named Gold Beach.

The Allied landing of 156,000 Allied troops, carried on 7,000 boats and called Operation Overlord, led to the liberation of occupied Western Europe and Nazi Germany’s surrender a year later as the Soviet Red Army approached Berlin from the east.

For a second year-running, COVID-19 caution kept Normandy’s World War Two beaches largely empty Sunday, with foreign visitors and wartime veterans, now in their 90s, largely absent.

Memorial ‘long overdue’

In a videoed message, Britain’s Prince Charles described the memorial’s unveiling as “long overdue” in remembering “extraordinary selflessness and resolve.”

French Defense Minister Florence Parly said France was “forever grateful.”

She described June 6, 1944, as a “lightning bolt of freedom”… in the heart of the [then] mist that enveloped the Normandy Coast.”

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Day of reckoning

  The Normandy invasion is known historically as D-Day, but it remains unclear what exactly the “D” means. Whether it’s simply a signifier for “Day,” or it means “Decision,” one thing is for certain. It was the beginning of one of the most significant battles in military history.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Operation Overlord

  The five sectors of the 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of Normandy coast where the landings happened were all given different names: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword, and Juno. Apart from the US, 13 other nations were involved in the invasion. Troop contingents were provided by the Americans, British, Polish, Canadians, French, Greeks, Czechs and Australians.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Commander in charge

  The commander of the Allied forces in northern Europe was General Dwight Eisenhower, who would go on to become the 34th president of the United States. A few months prior to D-Day, Eisenhower had successfully led landings in Sicily and mainland Italy.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Far-reaching weather report

  Just before the planned start of Operation Overlord on June 5, storms broke over Normandy, forcing Allied commanders to push the invasion back a day. The largest amphibious landings in military history got underway on June 6. The weather was not ideal, but allies feared Germans would learn of their plans if the delay continued.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Death commando

  Around 156,000 soldiers reached land on D-Day. On five different locations on the beach, they stormed the “Atlantic Wall,” where German Wehrmacht soldiers were perched in fortifications that had been built in anticipation of an assault. The allied troops were forced to run unprotected, first through water and then onto the beach, all the while under German fire.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Paratroopers

  Before the D-Day Invasion began, paratroopers had touched ground early on June 6 in a bid to secure key positions behind the Atlantic Wall. The troopers were camouflaged (shown here); they also used war paint and Mohawks to frighten the enemy.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Aerial and naval assault

  At first, the beaches of Normandy were bombed from the air by the Allies. After the beach had been secured, over 1,000 warships and some 4,200 landing crafts converged on the coast. Further reinforcement was provided by thousands of planes and tanks.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Nifty maneuver

  One of the reasons why “Operation Overlord” was so successful was that the German military command simply wasn’t expecting it – at least not in Normandy. The Allies duped the Nazis into thinking they would land at Calais, near the Belgian border, and at a date later than June 6.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Nazis on vacation

  Many leading NS officers had absolutely no idea D-Day was going to happen when it did. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, for instance, was celebrating his wife’s 50th birthday in the south of Germany when the invasion started. (Pictured above: Wehrmacht divisions at Normandy in 1940)

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  A confident Hitler

  When the invasion got underway, Adolf Hitler was sleeping in Obersalzberg. His officers didn’t dare wake him, and when they did (at 10 in the morning), the Nazi leader was in surprisingly good spirits. After being briefed, he is said to have exclaimed: “The news couldn’t be better!” Hitler was apparently pleased that the Allies were “finally in a place where we can defeat them.”

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Almost a year of loss

  Even if the Normandy landings were perhaps the decisive battle for the Allies, the final victory came at heavy price. It still took 11 months for peace to be declared in Europe, and many of the soldiers who took part in the invasion were shipped straight to the Asia Pacific shortly thereafter. The war lasted until September 2, 1945, when Japan capitulated.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Fallen heroes

  Around 57,000 Allied soldiers lost their lives in Operation Overlord, which started on D-Day and continued until the end of August. Another 155,000 were injured and 18,000 reported missing. German losses rounded out at about 200,000. Each year on June 6, there is a ceremony of remembrance at Normandy. Heads of state and government and many veterans often make the trip to the French coast.

• D-Day: Allies storm the Atlantic Wall

  Settled dust

  In 2004, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder became the first German leader to take part in the ceremonies at Normandy. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, shown embracing France’s Jacques Chirac, chose his words carefully for the event: “We will never forget the victims.” Schröder added: “It’s not the old Germany of those dark years that I am representing today.”

  Author: Sarah Judith Hofmann / glb

Inscribed on 160 white stone columns, arrayed like a British flag at Ver-sur-Mer, are the names of 22,442 servicemen and women, mostly British, who fell between D-Day, June 6 and August 31, 1944.

They also include soldiers then under British command of over three dozen nationalities from across the Commonwealth and French resistance fighters.

The new memorial cost €35 million ($43 million), contributed by the British government and private donors.

Veteran David Mylchreest, 97, chatting with British ambassador Edward Lewellyn after Sunday’s unveiling

The Ver-sur-Mer site also includes a French Memorial, dedicated to some 20,000 French civilians killed across Normandy during aerial bombings and ground battles.

Previously, key sites to pay respects were for Brits a nearby cemetery in Bayeux town and the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach.

War heroes absent due to COVID

Sunday’s ceremonies, limited to a few selected guests and dignitaries, amounted to a “big absence” of veterans, said WWII expert Denis van den Brink.

“They are all around 95, 100 years old, and we hope they’re going to last forever, but you know…,” he said, his voice trailing off.

Local Normandy residents did, however, visit the monuments over the weekend.

So too did history enthusiasts and a few visitors from neighboring European countries seen touring small roads in jeeps and military vehicles.

Driving inland from Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, as shown in a Canadian archive photo

At Omaha Beach, whose blufftop cemetery contains 9,380 graves, reenactors paid tribute at dawn Sunday, bringing flowers and American flags. 

But largely absent were American and Canadian tourists who in past years have flocked to Normandy.

Tour guide struggles with lack of business

Freelance tour guide Sylvain Kast, who normally works full-time over summer guiding visitors, said he only had three bookings between June and October.

“You do this job for the love of it,” said Kast, a standby history teacher, who’s also worked nightshifts welding during the pandemic. “It’s been tough psychologically.”

Across Normandy are more than 20 military cemeteries holding the remains of Americans, British, Canadian, French, German and Polish troops who died in the 1944 battle that saw Allied troops reach Germany in the winter of early 1945.

The D-Day landings on five Normandy beaches — also code-named Utah, Juno and Sword — still ranks as one of the world’s biggest ever naval operations.

ipj/mm (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/normandy-d-day-commemorations-muted-by-pandemic/a-57793915?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf