“There are things worth fighting for,” says a World War II veteran. “Though I wish there was another way to do it other than trying to kill each other.”
Veterans of the Second World War joined heads of state and other figures to commemorate this Thursday the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings.
The invasion of the Allied troops, which began on June 6, 1944, led to the defeat of the Nazis and the end of the war.
The assault on the beaches began with Allied aircraft bombing the German defenses in Normandy, followed by around 1,200 planes carrying troops.
When dawn broke, the allied forces began to bomb German coastal defenses, and soon after ships began landing troops on five beaches code-named: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
At the end of the day, almost 160,000 Allied troops had landed in Normandy, although there were thousands of casualties.
A Europe at war
A dwindling number of World War II veterans have made the pilgrimage back to France, while the russian invasion large-scale ukrainian has dashed hopes that lives and cities are not devastated again in Europe.
As veterans, now centenarians, relive old memories of fallen comrades buried in Normandy tombs, the presence of the Ukrainian president Volodímir Zelenski at D-Day commemorations with world leaders, including the US president Joe Bidenwho support their country’s fight against the Russian invasion, inevitably will merge the terrible past of World War II with the tense present this Thursday.
Since the dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine are estimated at hundreds of thousands, the commemorations of the more than 4,400 allies killed on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, who died in the subsequent Battle of Normandy, are tinged with concern that the lessons of World War II are being lost.
“There are things worth fighting for”said World War II veteran Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and will turn 100 in July, while visiting Omaha Beach this week. “Though I wish there was another way to do it other than trying to kill each other.”
“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be there to see it.”he added.
