CARENTAN-LES-MARAIS, France (AP) — Parachutists dropped from a World War II-era plane and soared into the now peaceful skies of Normandy on Sunday, kicking off a week of ceremonies for the fast-fading generation of Allied soldiers who fought from the beaches of the Normandy landings 80 years ago to the downfall of Adolf Hitler and helped liberate Europe from Hitler’s tyranny.
Along the beaches of Normandy, where young soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other Allied nations walked ashore under gunfire on five beaches on June 6, 1944, French officials, grateful Normandy survivors and other admirers say “thank you” but also bid farewell.
A parachute drop takes place in Carentan-les-Marais, Normandy, France, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
It will be the last of a dwindling number of veterans, some in their late 90s or older, returning to remember their fallen friends and their history-changing achievements.
For former British Army paratrooper Neil Hamsler, 63, watching the southern England coastline recede Sunday from the window of one of three C-47 transport planes that carried him and the other divers across the English Channel to the landing sites in Normandy was like traveling back in time to the day of the Normandy landings.
A parachute drop takes place in Carentan-les-Marais, Normandy, France, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
“For those young men of 1944, this was going to be their last sight of Britain,” Hamsler said. Their landing was during daylight hours on a Sunday, but unlike the Allied paratroopers who landed at night in the early hours of D-Day, “nobody fired at us,” Hamsler said. “It was a really painful reminder.”
One of the aims of the fireworks, parachute drops and solemn commemorations and ceremonies attended by world leaders this week is to pass the baton of memory to the current generation, which is witnessing war again in Europe and Ukraine. Among the VIPs France expects at the Normandy landings events are US President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and members of the British royal family.
A parachute drop takes place in Carentan-les-Marais, Normandy, France, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
One after the other, the C-47s swung about, dropping lines of jumpers, 70 in all, dressed in World War II-style military uniforms. Round parachutes mushroomed into a blue sky studded with fluffy white clouds. A huge crowd of thousands cheered and waited, listening to Glenn Miller and Edith Piaf. The loudest applause was for the deer that leapt out of the undergrowth and sprinted past the drop zone as the jumpers landed.
The two planes, named “That’s All, Brother” and “Placid Russie,” were D-Day veterans among the thousands of C-47s and other aircraft that formed part of the largest land-sea and air fleet in history on June 6, 1944. Allied airborne forces, some of whom made terrifying drops aboard gliders, were the first to land in the early hours of D-Day, securing roads, bridges and other strategic points inland from the invasion beaches and destroying artillery batteries that were churning the sand and ships with deadly fire.
The plane took off Sunday from Duxford, England, for the 90-minute flight to Carentan, the Normandy town that was central to the 1944 Normandy landings, where paratroopers jumped out in the dark and under fire, many of them scattered far from their targets.
The U.S. military conducts an air raid demonstration ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, in Carentan-les-Marais, Normandy, France, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
On Sunday, the jumpers were members of the International Civilian Parachute Corps, many of them former soldiers. The only woman, 61-year-old Donna Bennett, felt the power of history as she lifted off the plane into the Normandy skies.
“It’s the same porch, the same countryside as 80 years ago, and I think, ‘Oh, thank goodness I didn’t have to do this in the middle of the night,'” she says. “Everyone keeps saying this is the greatest generation, and I really do believe that.”
Dozens of World War II veterans are gathering in France to relive old memories, make new ones and drive home a message repeated so often by survivors of the Normandy landings and subsequent Normandy landings and other World War II theaters: war is hell.
“Seven thousand of my Marines were killed. Twenty thousand were shot, wounded, taken overboard and buried at sea,” said Don Graves, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served on Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater.
“I want the young people here, the younger generation, to know what we did,” said Graves, who was part of a group of more than 60 World War II veterans who arrived in Paris on Saturday.
The U.S. military conducts an air raid demonstration ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, in Carentan-les-Marais, Normandy, France, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
The youngest veteran in the group is 96 years old, while the oldest is 107, according to Dallas-based airline American Airlines.
“We did our mission, we came home, and that was it. I don’t think we ever talked about it. No one talked about it for 70 years,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Ralph Goldsticker, another veteran who served with the 452nd Bombardment Group.
Speaking of the Normandy landings, he recalled seeing from an airplane “a vast beach with thousands of ships anchored there” and described the bombing of German positions and routes that would have allowed the Germans to rush in reinforcements and push the invaders back into the sea.
“At 6:58 a.m. we dropped the first bomb on a heavy weapons position,” he said. “We returned home and landed at 9:30 a.m. We reloaded.”
