Veterans of the turning point of the Second World War are now gathered together for perhaps the last time.
It has been 80 years since the Normandy landings, which started the destruction of Nazi Germany. A group of veterans who took part in it in 1944 have gathered in France to remember the daring operation of the Western Allies.
Since even the youngest of the veterans are approaching the age of one hundred, it is likely that the veterans will be with the troops in Normandy now for the last time.
A 98-year-old British veteran who served in the navy Ronald Hendrey remember of the Daily Mirror in the interview, still the words uttered by his captain on the eve of landing.
– You are leaving for France to begin the liberation of Europe. I want you to give 101 percent in the next 24 hours, Hendrey quotes the captain as saying.
– The ship had never been so quiet. Everyone was thinking the same thing: Is this my last day on earth?
A 98-year-old British veteran Jim Glennie says In an interview with the British broadcasting company BBC that he believed that he survived only by good luck.
– We were just told to “get ready, you’re going abroad”, Glennie laughs.
Stepping off the landing craft into the sea in Normandy, 18-year-old Glennie helped his fellow soldiers.
– My two friends hung on my side, because they knew I could swim.
The body of a fallen Canadian soldier was floating in the sea, but Glennie says she knew she still had to keep going.
A week later, a wounded Glennie was a prisoner of war. He spent his 19th birthday in a prison camp.
101-year-old veteran tiktok
– I am the luckiest man in the world, says the 101-year-old American Jake Larsonwhich ran aground on Omaha Beach under machine-gun fire, but survived uninjured.
After landing, Larson recalls resting next to his comrade when he raised his rifle, was hit by shrapnel, and the weapon split in half.
Larsson is on Tiktok where he is known as Papa Jake. He has over 800,000 followers.
In a centenarian from the United States By Bob Gibson The events of 80 years ago are vivid in my mind. He came ashore in another wave at Utah Beach.
– I remember it like it was yesterday. I want to see that beach again, he hoped before arriving at the Memorial Day festivities.
For a Canadian war veteran To William Cameron the trip to the 80th anniversary of the landing remained an unfulfilled dream. A hundred-year-old Cameron died on the eve of the trip.
Cameron, who served on a Canadian Navy corvette in World War II, previously told about the atmosphere in June 1944.
– It was awful. We were all very scared, no doubt about that. Especially when the enemy planes were coming straight at you.
This is what it looked like in Normandy on June 6, 1944:
Sources: AFP, AP