From Biden To Emmanuel Macron, World Leaders Mark 80th Anniversary Of D-Day Invasion; All You Need to Know. On this day 80 years ago, Allied forces turned the tables on the Axis powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy) and invaded Nazi-held Europe on June 6, 1944, during World War II Operation D-Day. The Allied forces, from Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, stormed into Normandy, France to liberate Europe from Adolf Hitler’s grip.
King Charles, marking D-Day’s 80th anniversary, applauded the remarkable wartime generation for the unflinching bravery and Normandy landings. During commemoration event in Ver-sur-Mer, France, he said they are remembered with gratitude.
The French president Emmanuel Macron presented a Legion d’Honneur to a 103-year-old Christian Lam, a veteran of the wartime British female naval service, who helped plan the landings. Macron said France will never forget the British troops who landed on D-Day and all their brothers in arms.
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Williams, the Prince of Wales, and the prime ministers of France (Gabriel Attal) and Canada (Justin Trudeau) left flowers on Juno Beach with flags bearing the maple leaf fluttering away in the gentle breeze. Trudeau told the people that words were not enough to describe the immensity of the debt owed to the Allied forces. He highlighted that democracy, even today, is still under threat.
What was D-Day?
The phrase ‘D-Day’, as per the Royal British Legion was used often and was a military code. Operation D-Day was codenamed OVERLOAD to deliver five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France. Historians say the beaches were given code names – UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, and SWORD. The operation was powered by 7,000 ships, landing craft, and over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. More than 850,000 men and 148,000 vehicles, as well as 570,000 tons of supplies landed on the Normandy shores by June 30.
According to the US Department of Defense, D-Day was the successful beginning of the end of Hilter’s regime. D-Day came at the cost of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died during the drop behind enemy lines. The enemy shot them out from the sky or weighed them down, and even drowned them in flooded marshlands. It was brutal. It was gruesome.
Garrette Graft, a historian wrote in his book ‘When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day’, described D-Day as a Herculean heroic triumph…the Allied troops had no idea what lay ahead and were concerned about whether they’ll live to see the end of the day.
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Stephen Ambross, a historian, stated in his book that the plan had been for air and naval bombardments, followed by tanks and dozers for the infantry to match up the ravines and take on the enemy. But it completely failed.
But going forward, the invasion was fruitful and France was liberated from Germany on August 25 of 1944 and in May 1945, Germany laid down its arms and surrendered.
