In village after village along the winding roads of France’s Normandy coast, the flags were out Tuesday. Stars and Stripes fluttered alongside the French tricolor, the British Union Jack and the Canadian flag adorned with its red maple leaf.
American World War II veteran Gene Neeley walks through the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, in Normandy, France.
Relations between President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron may be strained, but the days leading up to the“When veterans started coming back here years ago, local people used to turn out to hug and kiss them,” said resident Francine Duchemin Noyon, whose organization Normandy Chapters arranges exchange visits for veteran men and women who served in the area during World War II. “The feeling for the American and Allied troops here remains strong, very strong.
Many of the young men who swarmed ashore under heavy fire or were dropped in by parachute could not have placed France on a world map before that fateful day.Clifford Goodall, 93, a third-class signalman with the 7th Naval Beach Battalion, remains haunted by his good fortune in surviving the landing at Omaha Beach, unlike the hundreds of his countrymen who were killed and injured.
Joseph Brader, 93, from St. Louis, was serving with the 1st Army VII Corps as an engineer when ordered to drive his jeep off a landing craft in the early hours of D-day. “There were dead everywhere. Many had drowned in the ocean and the waves had washed them up on the beach,” he said.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
75 years after D-Day, a former German soldier is worried for EuropeAs the world prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, a former German solider said he fears a fraying of the alliances that were created in the wake of the war, which brought peace and stability to Europe.
Read more »
Post-war western alliance in doubt 75 years after D-Day'What the world learned beginning in World War I and culminating in World War II … is that old policies of each state being completely autonomous decisionmaker, doing only what it wished was too fragile of a basis for a well-ordered civilization.'
Read more »
Photo gallery: D-Day, 75 years ago“As one officer said,” war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote shortly after the invasion, “the only way to take a beach is to face it and keep going. It is costly at first but it’s the only way.” On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched a massive invasion of the French coast at Normandy, opening a new front that helped defeat Nazi Germany and end the war in Europe within a year. “In the light of a couple of days of retrospection,” Pyle wrote from the front, “we sit and talk and call it a miracle that our men ever got on at all or were able to stay on.”
Read more »
The Latest: Parachutists recreate D-Day jumps 75 years onLONDON (AP) — The Latest on commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-Day (all times local): 9:05 a.m. The skies are bright and the weather favorable for jumps by close to 200...
Read more »
Trump issues early morning barbs ahead of D-Day commemorationAfter two days spent basking in royal attention, President Donald Trump turned Wednesday to more solemn matters: commemorating 75 years since the Normandy landings.
Read more »
The D-day photos that must be seenSome photos must be taken, some images must be seen. These thoughts must have motivated photographer Robert Capa 75 years ago as he plunged off a landing craft and onto Omaha Beach with an early wave of the D-day landings.
Read more »
A D-Day vet's song about Normandy is No. 1 on Amazon's singles chart, ahead of Ed Sheeran and Justin BieberJim Radford was only 15 when he served as a ship's galley boy on June 6, 1944, making him the youngest known D-Day veteran. 75 years later, he's released a new version of a ballad he wrote in 1969 to honor those who died in Normandy.
Read more »
97-year-old D-Day veteran parachutes into Normandy againParachutists are jumping over Normandy again, just as soldiers did 75 years ago for D-Day — but this time without being shot at. Engines throbbing, C-47 transport planes dropped group after group of parachutists, a couple of hundred in all - including a 97-year-old D-Day veteran, Tom Rice. 'It
Read more »
World War II veterans return to Normandy for 75th D-Day anniversary93-year-old Royal Navy D-Day veteran sets foot on Juno Beach for the first time in 75 years, paying his respects to the fallen ahead of the invasion's 75th anniversary.
Read more »
D-Day: What happened during the Normandy landings?D-Day was 75 years ago today. It's still the largest joint military operation ever undertaken.
Read more »