Commentary: Listening to D-Day's last eyewitnesses
SAINT-LAURENT-SUR-MER, France — Anyone who lives long enough knows that children soak up memories that can stay with them forever. A hardy bunch of 90-somethings are counting on it.
A group of French students joined 15 World War II veterans from the United States who returned this week to the beach U.S. troops stormed on D-Day and an emotional ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery that overlooks it.
With fewer men left to share war stories, a focus of commemorations for the 75th anniversary of D-Day has been keeping their memories from June 1944 alive by passing them on to the youngest generation.
One of the French children who heard firsthand accounts of D-Day, 10-year-old Martin Deshayes, marveled at the thousands and thousands of troops who landed on beaches when Germany occupied his country.
“There are so many who have died for us, to rescue us,” Martin said. “If they hadn’t landed at that time, maybe we would be Germans now or we wouldn’t exist.”
The faces of the American veterans and the French youngsters conveyed emotion as they posed for a group photo on Omaha Beach.
Groups of American high schools visited another significant D-Day site a few kilometers away on Wednesday; U.S. Army rangers captured the Pointe du Hoc on after scaling high cliffs.
“We lost hundreds of our men trying to take this particular spot,” Brian Goodbrake, a history teacher who traveled from Nebraska with 48 students, said.
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