‘Eternal debt’: 200 surviving veterans are focus of this year’s D-day

At the dying of the day, as dark descended across the beaches of Normandy, where the blood of so many thousands was spilled 80 years ago, each of the headstones of the 4,600 men lying in the Bayeux war cemetery was aglow.

King Charles, in his first significant pronouncement since his cancer diagnosis in February, had spoken earlier in Portsmouth of the “eternal debt” owed to the 10,000 casualties who had embarked from England’s south coast with the awesome task of “replacing tyranny with freedom”.

The king, with undisguised emotion, had told of the “liberty won at such terrible cost”, but, to the discomfort of some of those now well into their late 90s or older, it is not the dead who are at the centre of the D-day commemorations in England and Normandy this year.

A total of 156,115 men landed in Normandy in the early hours of 6 June 1944, but French officials estimate that a mere 200 veterans, mostly Americans but also British and Canadians, have returned to the scene of battle this time. The Royal British Legion brought 20 veterans back to the beaches, compared with the 255 in 2019 for the 75th commemorations.

Each of the events in England and northern France has been curated in the knowledge that this is likely to be the final opportunity to hear the testimony of those who were there, and to thank them in person.

“I’m not a hero. It is the ones who did not come back who were the heroes,” said Ken Cooke, 98, who as an 18-year-old stepped on to Gold beach at 7.45am. His protestations were politely put to one side.

The breezy but sun-kissed day – the vast allied armada of vessels and the daring airborne troops had been launched in much harsher conditions at the Nazi defences in northern France in 1944 – had started with a direct tribute to the veterans on Southsea common.

The king said: “At this remove, eight decades later, it is a near impossible task to imagine the emotion of that day: the pride of being part of so great an enterprise, the anxiety of in some way not coming up to scratch, and the fear of that day being their last.

“I recently myself spoke to veterans who, to this day, remember with such heartbreaking clarity the sight of those many soldiers lying on the beach, who drowned before they could even engage in combat.

“The stories of courage, resilience and solidarity which we have heard today, and throughout our lives, cannot fail to move us, to inspire us, and to remind us of what we owe to that great wartime generation – now, tragically, dwindling to so few.”

The allied invasion of Normandy was – and remains – the largest amphibious assault ever carried out. More than 75,000 British, Canadian, and other Commonwealth troops landed on the beaches alongside the United States and the Free French. Another 7,900 British troops landed by air with the support of more than 7,000 ships and smaller vessels.

The king went on: “Those who gathered here in Portsmouth would never forget the sight. It was by far the largest military fleet the world has ever known. Yet all knew that both victory and failure were possible, and none could know their fate.”

After musical performances, including of songs made famous by Vera Lynn, and flypasts by two historic Dakota military transport aircraft and the Red Arrows, the king, the queen and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, met 21 veterans, among them Roy Hayward, 98, who served as a reserve tank crewman and landed on Gold beach.

“They asked me how I got on and how I had my legs blown off,” he said. “I lost both of my legs, but that’s nothing in comparison with what happened to other people and that’s always the attitude I’ve had.”

Of the commemorations, he added: “It made me feel reminiscent and it has made me think of all the people who didn’t come back.”

In Normandy, the main events will be held on Thursday at the British Normandy memorial outside the village of Ver sur Mer overlooking Gold beach and then at Omaha beach, the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting, where an international commemoration will be attended by the US president, Joe Biden, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, among others.

The significance of the invitation to the Ukrainian president was made all the clearer by Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the village of Plumelec, in Brittany, on Wednesday, where he saluted the bravery of the Free French paratroopers who landed there.

The French president said he was sure today’s youth were “ready for the same spirit of sacrifice as its elders”. “As the dangers mount, you remind us that we are ready to consent to the same sacrifices to defend what is most dear to us,” he said.

No Russian representative has been invited to the commemorative events this year due to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is not clear whether Macron had been made aware that a criminal investigation had been ordered just hours earlier after the local mayor discovered that all the tricolore flags had been stolen from the village overnight by a Breton separatist group. It had also been necessary to quickly tidy up a bus shelter on which someone had scrawled, “Brittany is not for sale”, “Macron, stay out of Brittany” and “Here it is not France”.

There was no such trouble in Bayeux, however, where 1,000 people, including veterans and the princess royal, paid tribute at the war cemetery and the town’s cathedral. A reading was heard of an account by JH Patterson, a medical officer from No 4 Commando, who had landed on Sword beach in the initial assault.

“‘Troops, man your boats,’ came over the loudhailer,” Patterson wrote. “My hands grew numb and my teeth were chattering with cold and fright. It was H-hour and the first infantry were going in. Private Hindmarch was beside me – and Sapper Mullen. He died of his wounds later that day. And Lt Kennedy, looking grim but enjoying his rum. Just as well, as he was never seen again after leaving the boat.”