COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France – Thousands of people have returned to the hilltops overlooking the sea.
On a clear late spring afternoon, World War II veterans facing the winter of their lives, many in wheelchairs or with canes, returned to join President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and other dignitaries to remember a bloody day that changed the world.
From hallowed ground, where many of their fallen comrades rest beneath French soil, they honoured their fallen and commemorated the events of June 6, 1944, now known to the world as D-Day.
“Want to know the price of freedom? Come to Normandy,” said Biden, 81, who was just a toddler on the day of the Normandy invasion.
Eighty years ago, some 160,000 soldiers from the United States, Canada, Britain and other allied nations descended on the beaches of Normandy by air, road and land to liberate Nazi-occupied France.
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Although the fighting was brutal and casualties were high—more than 4,400 Allied soldiers were killed—the unprecedented show of unified military power marked the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany’s dominance of Europe.
“It’s hard to underestimate or minimise the importance of D-Day and what happened on D-Day,” said Charles Jew, executive director of the American War Memorials Commission, which manages 24 US military cemeteries overseas. “Everything in this world changed after that day, and the fact that we were successful on that day made America, the world and the West what it is today.”
The heroes of the Normandy landings “kept freedom alive,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
“You saved the world, we just have to protect it,” he said. “Gentlemen, we salute you.”
Veterans returned to France on Thursday for the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, some of whom were among the first to arrive and fight. The ceremony, held at the Normandy American Cemetery, drew an estimated crowd of 10,000 to 12,000 people, including four-star officers, more than 150 members of parliament and dozens of members of the French parliament. Other ceremonies are planned, and 25 heads of state are expected to attend.
An ocean breeze blew through the American Cemetery, and small American and French flags fluttered above each of the graves of some 9,400 Americans killed in the war. The sunlight lit up the white marble crosses and Stars of David that mark each burial site.
Just off the coast, navy battleships patrolled the English Channel, and men in military uniforms looked out to sea from a grassy hillside, on top of which Allied soldiers advanced and were met with German machine-gun fire.
Before the ceremony, Biden and First Lady Jill Biden met with the veterans one by one in a glass gazebo overlooking Omaha Beach, where many of the soldiers landed 80 years ago. Biden saluted, took photos with each of them and handed them coins that were specially minted for the occasion.
During the ceremony, Macron awarded 11 U.S. veterans and one British veteran with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor, in recognition of their sacrifice. Macron pinned the medal on each person’s lapel and gave them a quick kiss on the cheek.
In his speech, Biden drew parallels between the Allied forces fighting to liberate Europe during World War II and the alliance of nations that banded together to defend Ukraine during its war with Russia.
Those who fought in World War II “did their duty,” he said, but “that doesn’t absolve us from what we have to do.”
“Let’s remember those who fought here, who died here, who literally saved the world here, and let’s be worthy of their sacrifice,” Biden said. “When history is written about our generation, let’s be the generation that says, ‘We were there to see it.'”
As he spoke, several veterans held up their cell phones to record what he said.
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Beyond the powerful symbolism of Thursday’s events was the solemn reality that for many of the veterans, the ceremony would be their last. The youngest of the World War II veterans are in their mid-90s, and many are well over 100 years old.
Of the 16.4 million Americans who served in the war, only 119,000 are still alive today, or less than 1%, according to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. They are dying at a rate of 131 per day.
Some veterans who attended the ceremony said they did so out of a sense of duty, while others said they wanted to see once again the places where so many friends and brothers died defending freedom.
“I’m not a very emotional person,” said John Gleason, an Army Air Corps veteran from Honolulu, “but I do what I feel I have to do.”
Gleason, 100, said fighting to preserve American culture during the war meant a lot to him — “it still does,” he said — and that was one of the reasons he flew more than 7,000 miles to attend the event.
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Les Schrenk, a 100-year-old veteran from Bloomington, Minnesota, said D-Day is “part of my story. It’s a story I’ve lived with for many years.”
Schrenk enlisted in the Army Air Corps the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and was a gunner on a B-17 that came under German anti-aircraft fire over the English Channel. The damaged aircraft landed over Denmark, but Schrenk and the rest of the crew were forced to parachute out. German soldiers were waiting for them on the ground, and Schrenk was captured and taken prisoner.
For years, Schrenck had wondered about the German pilot who shot down and disabled the B-17s. Who was that pilot, and why didn’t he take them down while the Americans were still at sea?
With the help of a friend, Schrenk tracked down the pilot, Hans-Hermann Müller, in 2012. The two wartime enemies met in Heidelberg and forged an unlikely friendship. Schrenk finally got answers to questions that had been bothering him for years.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I could shoot you down, but why should I?'” Schlenk recalled.
If the plane had been shot down over the ocean, Mueller explained, the Americans would have had no chance of survival — they would all be dead.
“He saved my life,” Schlenk said.
Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on Twitter, @mcollinsNEWS.
