![]() On D-Day itself, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. They had become the Normandy soil,” he added, in a voice filled by emotion. “Some, especially at the beginning when there were no coffins yet, had been buried in the ground. They were a bit like friends,” Renaud said. “Often, people had adopted a grave because they had seen a name they liked. In the years following the war, local people were allowed to go to the cemeteries. More than 12,000 soldiers were buried temporarily in Sainte-Mere-Eglise during and after the Battle of Normandy, before being moved to their final resting place. He died and his feet never touched (French) soil, and that is very moving to me.” He was told: ‘You’re going to jump in the middle of the night in a country you don’t know’. “That’s always to that young guy that I’m thinking of. The first thing I do is look at that tree,” he said. paratrooper stuck in a big tree that is still standing by the town’s church. He especially recalls seeing one dead U.S. paratroopers flew over the town while German soldiers fired at them with machine guns.ĭescribing an “incredible noise” followed by silence, he remembers crossing the town's central square in the morning of June 6. He was a young boy and was hidden in his family home in Sainte-Mere-Eglise when more than 800 planes bringing U.S. Henri-Jean Renaud, 86, remembers D-Day like it was yesterday. That's just fun, happiness, and also being able to pay tribute to all the veterans. Pascal Leclerc, a member of the Remember Omaha Beach 44 group, shared the same joy. “We were afraid that we might feel a bit alone, but in the end we were happy to do even small gatherings.” it’s great pleasure, we needed it!” she said. Sitting in an old sidecar, Audrey Ergas, dressed in a vintage uniform including an aviator hat and glasses, said she used to come every year from the southern city of Marseille, except for last year due to virus travel restrictions. Residents, some waving French and American flags, came to watch. On Saturday morning, people in dozens of World War II vehicles, from motorcycles to jeeps and trucks, gathered in a field in Colleville-Montgomery to parade down the nearby roads along Sword Beach to the sounds of a pipe band. And I don’t think the French people will ever forget.” “And they remember what they did for them. “In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their heart,” Shay said. Some French and a few other World War II history enthusiasts from neighboring European countries gathered in Normandy.ĭriving restored jeeps, dressed in old uniforms or joyfully eating at the newly reopened terraces of restaurants, they're contributing to revive the commemorations' special atmosphere - and keeping alive the memory of June 6, 1944. Local residents, however, are coming in greater numbers than last year, as France started lifting its internal virus restrictions last month. Under a bright sun, the 96-year-old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island, Maine, stood steadily while the hymns of the Allied countries were played Friday in front of the monument commemorating the assault in Carentan that allowed the Allies to establish a continuous front joining nearby Utah Beach to Omaha Beach. Today, he recalls the “many good friends” he lost on the battlefield. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. ![]() Shay, who now lives in Normandy, was a 19-year-old U.S. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions. He was the only veteran attending a ceremony in Carentan commemorating the 77th anniversary of the assault that helped bring an end to World War II.Īmid the coronavirus pandemic, this year's D-Day commemorations are taking place with travel restrictions that have prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain and other allied countries from making the trip to France. CARENTAN, France (AP) - In a small Normandy town where paratroopers landed in the early hours of D-Day, applause broke the silence to honor Charles Shay.
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