60th anniversary of D-Day one of tears and tributes

By Tom Infield and William Douglas
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MIKE LARGE / AP A Canadian veteran wipes his eyes during yesterday's visit to Juno Beach, Courseulles-sur-Mer, France, on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

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President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac have been at odds over the invasion of Iraq, but they had no trouble agreeing on the historic importance of D-Day, June 6, 1944, which began an 11-month Allied campaign to reclaim northern Europe and defeat Adolph Hitler.

Chirac talked in grand, eloquent terms, saying: "I speak for every French man and woman in expressing our nation's eternal gratitude and unpayable debt ... France knows full well just how much it owes to the United States of America. America is an eternal ally."

Bush was plainer, blunter. He quoted from the Bible: "Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." He mentioned the common items — socks, shoes, helmets — that dead men had left on Omaha Beach.

	JOHN MCCONNICO / AP From left, Britain's Queen Elizabeth, French President Jacques Chirac, French first lady Bernadette Chirac, President Bush, U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin watch squadrons of aircraft fly over the parade ground in Arromanches, Normandy, yesterday.

He added: "America honors all the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes. And America would do it again for our friends."

Bush did not bring up the war in Iraq in his speech at Normandy, although he compared that conflict with World War II in an address last week. Some veterans, including Parnell Curry, 83, of Glendale, Calif., disagreed with the president's linking of the two wars. They weren't comparable, they said.

But Curry, who came ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day as an Army infantryman, added that to the soldier in combat, any skirmish "is major combat." It may be small on a geopolitical scale, he said, but "it's serious to the people fighting there."

After the American Cemetery ceremony, Bush and Chirac joined 22 world leaders representing 16 nations in an elaborate ceremony at Arromanches, the midway point along the Normandy beaches where Allied forces landed at dawn 60 years ago.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister John Howard were among the heads of state who watched more than 1,300 sharply dressed soldiers march in review.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder attended the ceremonies, marking the first time Germany has participated in D-Day ceremonies.

Schroeder placed a wreath at the tomb of an unknown soldier buried in the small German section of the British cemetery at Ranville.

Addressing "the citizens of Europe," Schroeder said, "Germans know who caused the war. We know our responsibility." He spoke of the "moral disappearance of Germany" under Hitler's dictatorship, and said, "It is not the Germany of those dark years that I represent here."

Only 10 years ago, his presence would have been hard to imagine. Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to be invited to the 50th anniversary ceremonies but was politely refused. Too soon, he was told. A few veterans groups in the United States and Britain grumbled that it was still too soon, but their objections were muted. Most veterans now seem to have warmed to the idea.

	WARRICK PAGE / GETTY IMAGES Military enthusiasts ride World War II-era American tanks during a parade yesterday through the village of Carentan, France. The event was part of the 60th-anniversary celebration of D-Day.

"I think it's a good gesture. The German soldiers were human beings also. Their cities and homes were destroyed," said Daniel Basile, 79, of Vernon Hills, Ill., a veteran of the Normandy invasion.

"I've long ago forgiven the Germans," said Howard Beach, 79, of La Mirada, Calif., who returned here for the first time.

There was a sense yesterday, with the veterans mostly in their 80s, that time is running out to honor the 3.8 million who remain from among 16.1 million who served.

"I had to come one last time to see the beach," said Scott Hott, 82, a semi-retired contractor from Doylestown, Pa.

"What does this means to me? It makes me happy: I'm still alive," he said.

Six decades after D-Day, France, Germany and the United States remain allies in NATO, and the United States continues to have 219,000 troops under its European Command.

With so many U.S. soldiers in the crowd yesterday, there was a keen sense that American lives again are being lost in war.

The Army's 4th Infantry Division was among those that attacked the Normandy coast on D-Day, landing at Utah Beach. Walking among the veterans and shaking their hands yesterday was Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who now is the division commander.

Odierno, who lost 53 of his 4th Division soldiers in a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, spent several minutes talking to Robert Reese, 80, a retired banker from Prairie Village, Kan., and a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge in 1945. The old soldier was thrilled that the tall man in green with two stars on his shoulders wanted to hear his story.

Odierno said later that he could hardly believe that men had climbed the bluff against machine gun and mortar fire. "When you come here and you look at this place — what it took to just cross over the beach — it's absolutely incredible the bravery these men had," he said.

Several veterans posed for pictures and shook hands with actor Tom Hanks and director Steven Spielberg, the creative forces behind the HBO series "Band of Brothers" and the film "Saving Private Ryan." But mostly, the men sought out old buddies and recounted what happened to them.

Robert Lankow, 79, was a Navy deck hand on D-Day. He recalled being too busy to be scared. "There was so much going on, and you had a job to do," said Lankow, of Grafton, Wis.

The Army fired a 21-gun salute. Taps was played, along with the national anthems of the United States and France. A trio of jets flew overhead. A small flotilla of warships were sleek and silent in the hazy blue of the English Channel.

Afterward, as the crowd scattered to board buses, many veterans walked the cemetery.

Curry, the veteran from California, was among them. "He's right around here somewhere," he said. "I want to find him. He died in my arms."

"Over here, Dad," said his stepson, Ed Monroe, two rows over. And soon they gathered around the grave of 1st Lt. Perley Hall of Maine, who was killed by a bullet to his throat while on patrol near Utah Beach six decades ago, Curry said.

Stanley Spillar, 80, a retired dental technician from Skokie, Ill., joined a friend from the 90th Infantry Division in kneeling to photograph the grave of a soldier from their outfit.

Neither had known the soldier, but they felt a connection to him.

"Here is this young man dead, and here we are alive 60 years later," Spillar said.

This is who he was: Nick Slobodian, of Michigan, private first class, killed June 14, 1944.

Material from The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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