Parachutists jumping from World War II-era planes hurled themselves Sunday, June 2 into Normandy's skies, heralding a week of ceremonies for the Allied troops who fought from D-Day beaches 80 years ago to free France and Europe from Nazi Germany's rule.
All along the Normandy coastline – where soldiers from across the United States, Britain, Canada and other Allied nations waded ashore on five beaches on June 6, 1944 – French officials, grateful Normandy survivors and other admirers are holding ceremonies this week. 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.
On Sunday, three C-47 transport planes, a workhorse of the war, dropped three long strings of jumpers, their round chutes mushrooming open in the blue skies with puffy white clouds, to whoops from the huge crowd that was regaled by tunes from Glenn Miller and Edith Piaf as they waited.
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. US President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and British royals are among the VIPs that France is expecting for the D-Day events.
Dozens of World War II veterans are converging on France, many perhaps for the last time, to revisit old memories, make new ones, and hammer home a message that survivors of D-Day and the ensuing Battle of Normandy, and of other World War II theaters, have repeated time and time again – that war is hell.
