With a people 16 of the state’s honor and government of the veterans of the landing, which began in Portsmouth. The British Queen has found the right words. Bernd Riegert reports.
Commemoration in Portsmouth: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (l.), British Queen
With a specially chartered cruise ship, 300 veterans of the landing operation “Overlord put over” from Portsmouth to Normandy. You repeat the journey, they started out 75 years ago, in order to expel the Hitler’s army out of France and liberate Europe. “At the time, I didn’t know what I expected. We were seasick. We just did what we were told. When we arrived at the beach, swam so many people in the water. Only later I realized that they were all dead,” recalls the Veteran Bob Jones (99).
As his PAL John Jenkins, also 99 years old, on the huge stage at the port of Portsmouth occurs, collect the 16 heads of state and government, among others from France, Germany and the United States, to the Ovation. Even the 93-year-old British Queen holds it on its seat. “We are the war generation,” says the Queen. “We are resilient. I am pleased that so many of you were able to come today and I’m still in the process.” In the name of your country and the entire free world, the Queen says a word to the heroes of the landing operation: “Thank you!”
Veteran John Jenkins is stirred, and says, at that time he had great anxiety, but you should not have anyone show up. “You can never let your comrades hang out. You forget you never. We should never forget what happened.”
The largest landing of the story
Portsmouth broke out on the 06. June 156,000 allied soldiers in 4000 landing boats in Normandy, where they fought heavy battles with the German Wehrmacht. Supported by 12,000 planes, artillery and sophisticated logistics in the UK, they conquered the coast of France and liberated, after, and to Western Europe. The beginning of the end of the Nazi regime and the Second world war that should last for almost a year.
Music from the time of the Invasion: to commemorate the successful Operation of 1944, with the Swing
Folk festival with German Bratwurst
The memorial in Portsmouth was more of a large folk festival with 65,000 visitors, lively music, food stalls, a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and a flight simulator of the “Red Arrows”, the art of Royal Air Force pilots. On the stage, scenes, plays from the days before the Invasion of actors downstream. The heads of state and government eye-witness reports to read. US President, Donald Trump was a prayer for the soldiers who had spoken to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt on D-Day. There were no long Speeches, but it is dominated remembering the veterans. The Queen, which was designed in the war as a car mechanic, spoke after the ceremony with many of the former soldiers and women who have worked in the education, logistics, or telecommunications-device-tune in 1944.
Weeks: I’m almost at each appearance of the Queen
“Is the Queen not great?”, David Weeks says. He was an avowed Royalist and British Nationalist, he said in his Strasbourg occupied suit, reminiscent of the British flag. “I was only three years old, but many in my family were,” says the 78-year-old man from Peter’s fields, not far from Portsmouth. Against the Germans, and also the participation of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the memorial ceremony, he has nothing. “In the meantime, we are reconciled. There is even a German Sausage,” he says, laughing and pointing at a food Stand behind the offering is actually “German sausage”.
Lloyd: The veterans will not forget
Wooden “wall” for Donald Trump
Criticism of the strong security measures in the run-up in Portsmouth. For the protection of the US President Donald Trump, the memorial for D-Day was widely blocked off with a three-Meter high Board wall. “Because of Trumps wall, we can see nothing, only on the screens,” asks Jeff Lloyd. The former medical soldier comes every year to the remembrance ceremony in Portsmouth. “This time everything is naturally bigger,” says Jeff Lloyd, who served in the 1960s as a British soldier in Malaysia. In 1944, he was only five years old. “My mother has told me many times from D-Day and the preparations.”
Collins: Trump is totally fine
“Eh, make it America again!” on the red cap of Mark Collins, who followed with his friends for the Celebration. He is an Englishman, but, nevertheless, a Fan of Donald Trump. The criticism of the participation of the President, he can’t understand. “You should always do what you have promised, and for that, Trump is,” says Mark Collins. Just like Trump, Mark Collins wishes as quickly as possible Brexit, so the exit from the European Union. Miltärisch you could work on together, in the same way as 75 years ago. His grandfather was in the army at that time. Accurate, he do not know, because of the had died before his birth, tells Mark Collins. You have to remember just to this “greatest of generations”.