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The beaches of Normandy looked very different Thursday than they did 75 years ago.
June 6 marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, the largest amphibious operation in world history. D-Day paved the way for Allied forces to plant themselves in Western Europe and eventually defeat Nazi Germany.
Ceremonies were held Thursday in Normandy, France to honour not only the Allied victory but to remember the fallen.
“Overwhelmed would characterize the whole event,” Lt.-Col. Stacey Grubb, the commanding officer of the Royal Regina Rifles, said on The Greg Morgan Morning Show after attending the event in France.
The Regina regiment also was able to send 10 civilians to the event thanks to a fundraiser.
Allied soldiers who stormed the beaches that day in 1944 included members of the Regina Rifle Regiment. For today’s generation of the Regina regiment, the experience was humbling.
“There’s two things we’re remembering,” said Grubb. “We’re remembering the liberation of France and the beginning of the end of the Second World War. But also, we’re remembering the sacrifice of all the soldiers that did lose their lives 75 years ago today.”
There were an estimated 10,000 Allied casualties as a result of D-Day, with more than 4,000 confirmed deaths.
Lee Berthiaume, a Canadian Press reporter who also attended the commemoration in Normandy, said going to the ceremony and talking to the veterans who were there is something he will never forget.
Berthiaume was able to speak to a number of D-Day veterans, which he said produced powerful moments. A number of the veterans shared with him their sentiments about that day.
“When you’re standing on the beach, you start thinking about all the years that your friends who died either on D-Day or on the days afterward, all the time that they just didn’t have because they died on that day,” Berthiaume said in recounting the veterans’ stories. “It was a really emotional moment.”
Grubb said the experience was emotional as well, and added there was one particular veteran of the Regina Rifles who stuck out to him.
“I have a saying: Joy shared is joy multiplied and pain shared is pain divided,” Grubb said. “We spent a lot of time with that gentleman and there was a bunch of joy multiplied and a bunch of pain divided.”
Both Grubb and Berthiaume said there were many young attendees at the ceremony. The veterans had one particular message that they wanted to send to the younger attendees: Avoid such horror and tragedy ever happening again.
“To be able to stand on that beach, talk to veterans saying, ‘What were you doing? What were you thinking? What are you thinking now?’ it’s really been quite an honour,” said Berthiaume. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”
