COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France — Veterans of the 1944 Normandy landings gathered Thursday at the site of history’s largest amphibious invasion for a day of ceremonies marking D-Day’s 69th anniversary.
Around two dozen U.S. vets, some in their old uniforms pinned with medals, stood and saluted during a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial overlooking Omaha Beach, where a U.S. cemetery holds the remains of over 9,000 Americans who died during the vicious battle to storm the French beach under withering Nazi fire.
Commemorations of the June, 6, 1944, battle began in respectful silence early Thursday morning, with the stars-and-stripes raised in a quiet ceremony at the cemetery.
Tourists, many from the U.S. and Britain, gathered under a brilliant spring sky to witness the flag-raising amid the neat rows of thousands of white marble crosses and stars of David marking the graves of U.S. servicemen and women fallen in the Allied invasion of Normandy.