Reflections on war past and present permeate D-Day’s 80th anniversary

The Normandy coast looks like a Hollywood movie set this time of year. Or maybe it’s a time warp. Did a 1940s truck full of American GIs just barrel past? Yes, it did! Welcome to Normandy on a D-Day anniversary, when thousands of people from across Europe and beyond descend on a string of tiny seaside towns and beaches to commemorate the 1944 Allied landing and, for some, to live out their passion for World War II history. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Frenchman Jacquy Patrice is here with his wife Dorothé and some friends. They are dressed as U.S. soldiers, a Women’s Army Corps member and a nurse. “We come every year dressed up,” he says. “It’s very poignant for us to dress like the American soldiers who liberated us.”

The group traveled from the Picardy region of France, some 300 miles away. They towed their 1940s jeep on a trailer. “It’s marvelous. We follow the same path of the GIs and it’s really moving,” Jacquy Patrice says. The small roads are clogged with thousands of such World War II-era vehicles ferrying enthusiastic passengers, driving down narrow lanes and the pathways of history.

Jacqui Patrice with his with Dorothé and some friends. They are dressed as U.S. soldiers, a WAC (Women’s Army Corps) and a nurse.
Jacquy Patrice with his with Dorothé and some friends, dressed as World War II-era U.S. soldiers, a Women’s Army Corps member and a nurse.
Eleanor Beardsley/NPR
President Biden and the leaders of France, Germany, Canada and the king of England will join these reenactors for the official ceremonies Thursday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that began June 6, 1944, to liberate the continent from the Nazis.

For many of the people who live in the towns and villages surrounding the landing beaches, the anniversary is at the same time grandiose and personal.

World War II veteran Gene Kleindl, age 102, from Rockford, Ill., receives a kiss from Chantell Boivin while leaving the Normandy American Cemetery on June 4 in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Kleindl, a medic in the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division, arrived on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

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Part of daily life
“It’s a moment of memory, of sharing and a moment to pay homage to all these people who saved us,” says Odile Laporte, part of a local choir performing outside on a plaza overlooking Gold Beach.

“Living here and being surrounded by the beaches and the ambience, and the museums all year long makes this moment especially important as we think about what happened here 80 years ago.”

More than 150,000 Allied troops landed at Normandy, including 73,000 from the United States landing at Omaha and Utah beaches, and thousands of other British and Canadian forces. Over 4,000 Allied troops were killed and thousands more were listed as missing or wounded.

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Ben Brands, a historian with the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, which keeps up the 26 U.S. overseas military cemeteries, says of all the invasion beaches, Omaha was the deadliest.

“Almost 800 Americans died on June 6 on Omaha Beach, just on the other side of this cemetery,” he says, explaining it was partly because of the bluffs and the soldiers met with heavier resistance than expected.

“But eventually small units led by junior soldiers taking the initiative were able to get off that beach and open up the Draws [cuts between the cliffs] and get them off the beach,” Brands says. “That’s how D-Day was won. By those incredibly heroic actions by small groups of men under extremely trying circumstances.” bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd bcd

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