OMAHA BEACH, France — Recalling the "unimaginable hell” of D-Day suffering, President Barack Obama paid tribute Saturday to the against-all-odds Allied landings that broke Nazi Germany’s grip on France and turned the tide of history.
"The sheer improbability of this victory is part of what makes D-Day so memorable,” Obama said.
He spoke under a sunny sky at the American Cemetery on cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach and other landing sites where American, British and Canadian soldiers established a beachhead 65 years ago under the withering fire of Nazi troops awaiting the Allies’ cross-channel gamble.
Normandy’s cliffs, still pocked with gun emplacements and other remnants of the war, including the white headstones of thousands of buried American troops, provided sure footing for the U.S. commander in chief.
"Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget — what we must not forget — is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century,” he said.
"At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary.”
This D-Day anniversary assumed special significance because veterans of the battle are reaching their 80s and 90s and their numbers are dwindling. One American veteran, Jim Norene, returned to France for Saturday’s ceremony, but died Friday night.
"Jim was gravely ill when he left his home,” Obama said. "But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace ... and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here.”
by the associated press
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