Parachutists jumping from World War II-era planes hurled themselves Sunday into now peaceful Normandy skies where war once raged.
Parachute drop in Carentan-Les-Marais in Normandy , France on Sunday, June 02, 2024, ahead of D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations.
The ever-dwindling number of veterans in their late nineties and older who are coming back to remember fallen friends and their history-changing exploits are the last. Part of the purpose of fireworks shows, parachute jumps, solemn commemorations and ceremonies that world leaders will attend this week is to pass the baton of remembrance to the current generations now seeing war again in Europe, in Ukraine.Looping around one after another, the C-47s dropped strings of jumpers — 70 in all, dressed in WWII-style uniforms. Their round chutes mushroomed open in the blue skies with puffy white clouds.
Sunday's jumpers were from an international civilian team of parachutists, many of them former soldiers. The only woman was 61-year-old Dawna Bennett, who felt history's force as she exited her plane into the Normandy skies. "Seven thousand of my marine buddies were killed. Twenty thousand shot up, wounded, put on ships, buried at sea," said Don Graves, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iwo Jima in the Pacific theater.
Normandy Veterans Parachutists Ceremonies World War II Allied Troops C-47 Transport Aircraft
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