A handful of surviving D-Day veterans wiped their eyes at a commemorative ceremony on Wednesday as King Charles III paid homage to their comrades who lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy 80 years ago.
Around 4,400 British, Canadian, and American troops were killed on June 6, 1944 and another 9,000 were wounded or reported as missing in action.
On D-Day the British troops were assigned Gold and Sword beaches while the Canadians tackled Juno beach and the U.S. forces hit Utah and Omaha beaches, further west.
The king, who was born in 1948, spoke of his “profound sense of gratitude” to those who fought on D-Day to liberate France and roll back the tyranny of Nazi Germany.
King Charles said: “On the beaches of Normandy, in the seas beyond and in the skies overhead, our armed forces carried out their duty with a humbling sense of resolve and determination: qualities so characteristic of that remarkable wartime generation.”
‘Our Gratitude Is Unfailing’
The monarch, who is recovering from cancer, ended his speech by saying, “Our gratitude is unfailing and our admiration eternal.”
There are less than 100 British D-Day veterans still alive and most of them were not well enough to travel to Normandy.
Every year their number gets smaller.
David Teacher, who was one of the first to arrive on the Normandy beaches in 1944, died at a nursing home in Salford, Greater Manchester, on May 24, aged 100.
Biden Draws Ukraine Analogy
Elsewhere U.S. President Joe Biden attended a ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery where he made a speech in which he appeared to link Adolf Hitler’s determination to dominate Europe in the 1940s and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies in Ukraine.Mr. Biden said, “The struggle between a dictatorship and freedom is unending ... Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination.”
King Charles, in his speech, made no reference to Ukraine but said, “Eighty years ago, on D-Day, 6th June 1944, our nation and those which stood alongside us faced what my grandfather, King George VI, described as the supreme test.”
“How fortunate we were, and the entire free world, that a generation of men and women in the United Kingdom and other Allied nations did not flinch when the moment came to face that test,” he added.
After giving his speech the king then saluted during the Last Post and the following minute’s silence.
Some of the D-Day veterans stood and saluted but others remained in their chairs or wheelchairs with their eyes closed.
Veteran Back to ‘Pay My Respects to Those Who Didn’t Make It’
Mr. Mines said he had come back “to pay my respects to those who didn’t make it.”Another veteran, former RAF Sgt. Bernard Morgan, who is 100, was pushed in his wheelchair to the ceremony by Mr. Sunak.
His daughter, Sheila, said, “I was surprised to see dad being pushed by the prime minister, it was quite the moment.”
The prince of Wales represented Britain at the Canadian commemorative ceremony at the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer.
Prince William was joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, Canadian D-Day veterans, and armed forces personnel.
Mr. Macron later awarded France’s highest medal, the Legion d'Honneur, to 11 U.S. veterans and to a former British naval officer, Christian Lamb.
Ms. Lamb, who is 104, was described as a, “hero in the shadows.”
She drew up detailed maps in Whitehall, which guided the crews of landing craft on D-Day.
Ms. Lamb sat in a wheelchair during the ceremony and Mr. Macron then bent down to pin her medal on and then kissed her on both cheeks.
He told her: “You were, in your own way, among those figures in the shadow of D-Day. You were not there in person but you guided each step they took.”
Despite suffering heavy casualties on D-Day the British, Canadian, and U.S. troops managed to create a beachhead, capturing the port of Cherbourg on June 26, 1944 and then liberating Caen in July and Paris in August.
The German army—which lost more than 4,000 men on D-Day alone—gradually retreated but Hitler refused to surrender and took his own life in his Berlin bunker days before the war ended.
On Wednesday, Mr. Macron said, “France will never forget the British troops who landed on D-Day and all their brothers-in-arms.”
