As D-Day Soldiers Fade Away, Locals in Liberated Lands Carry on Giving Thanks for the Yanks
Likely the last major anniversary with veterans, now it’s on the living to pay tribute to the soldiers who fought the war, rebuilt the towns, then left.
The eyes of the world are falling on the beaches at Normandy, France, as leaders mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. For most nations whose troops risked and sacrificed their lives at the landings, the beaches are far away in time and place. But locals are resolved to carry on eternal salutes to their liberators.
World War II touched every continent, and even the greatest armada ever assembled — while a huge set piece — is just one story in one theater. This is likely the last major anniversary to feature veterans, leaving it to the living to seize the torch from their faltering hands.
“Old soldiers never die,” General Douglas MacArthur said in his 1951 farewell address, “they simply fade away.” Citizens in nations then-occupied live the spirit of the English folklore MacArthur was quoting; with commemorations large and small, they make the 150,000 men who stormed the beaches immortal.
From fathers and sons in GI uniforms to women and girls dressed as WACs, the Women’s Auxiliary Corps, they come to honor the past. The thriller author, Jack Carr, wrote on X yesterday of “what has to be the longest standing ovation” he’d “ever witnessed” by 4,000 high school students saluting “our World War II veterans.”
The granddaughter of the baseball legend and D-Day veteran, Lawrence “Yogi” Berra, Lindsay Berra, tweeted a picture of French college students who — after researching “individual Americans who took part in the invasion” — wrote giant letters spelling “Yogi” in the sand.
A producer and amateur historian at iHeartRadio, Keith “Mojo” Doherty, described being struck by the throngs of citizens from France, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and the U.K. at the 70th anniversary of D-Day in 2014.
Five years ago, as the tributes unfolded, Mr. Doherty approached a group dressed in uniforms of the 101st Airborne, assuming they were Americans. They surprised him by responding in French. Like Civil War reenactors, they dress up each year to show their gratitude.
Even the often brusque gendarmes, Mr. Doherty said, were welcoming. At Arromanches-les-Bains, a man with his young son — both in uniform — approached Mr. Doherty and his wife, Eireann, pegging them as Yanks. They hailed, he explained, from “a town nobody’s ever heard of in Holland.”
“You Americans,” the Dutchman said, “came and pushed the Nazis out; then you came back, and you rebuilt my grandfather’s town, and then you left. You went home. Nobody does that.” Similar stories repeated throughout the events.
“I didn’t see anyone showing disrespect,” Mr. Doherty said, although the contingent of Americans was dwarfed by Europeans. Locals traded canteens and other gear left behind by the GIs, taking pride in the authenticity of their portrayals. Caravans flooded small towns, parking on grass lots that were once battlefields.
There were tank parades. Flybys by Spitfires and Lancaster bombers. Fleets of growling amphibious Duck boats and jeeps. “The murals painted on storefront windows were amazing and overwhelming,” Mr. Doherty said. “Every little town seemed to have something saluting our boys.”
Veterans were treated, Mr. Doherty said, “as HEROES — all caps.” When Private James “Pee Wee” Martin of G-Company in the 101st “came shuffling into a bar in Sainte-Mère-Église” in his bomber jacket, active-duty soldiers “formed a protective bubble” around the diminutive 94-year-old “so nobody would bump him.
“These were huge combat veterans that looked like GI Joe,” Mr. Doherty said, regarding Martin “with awe and wonderment.” Seeing him — 5’5” and “maybe 100 pounds” — Mr. Doherty tried to imagine “being that small and jumping out of a plane with Nazis shooting at me.”
Everywhere the veterans went, often in wheelchairs and on scooters, crowds parted, offered thanks, snapped pictures, and asked for autographs. “A lot of people,” Mr. Doherty said, “wanted to introduce their kids to them,” the youngest generation forging links to the Greatest.
Today’s ceremonies will be one of the last opportunities to meet veterans of D-Day. But even when the last has gone to his reward, the locals who enjoy liberty thanks to their sacrifices will hold their legacy high, ensuring that while the old soldiers of June 6, 1944, may die, their memories never fade away.
Correction: D-Day was June 6, 1944. The date was rendered incorrectly in the bulldog.
