WWII veterans join officials to mark 81st anniversary of D-Day landings
發佈日期: 2025-06-07 19:59
TVB News
In northern France, the anniversary of D-Day was marked.
It is 81 years since Allied troops landed on the beaches to fight German occupation and started to turn the tide of World War II.
U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth attended the ceremony with veterans and spoke of the need for unity to confront threats.
Eighty-one years since the D-Day landings.
A day that changed the course of history.
June 6th, 1944 marked the Allied invasion of Normandy and the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's stranglehold on Europe.
U.S Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth joined by French Minister for the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu to lay wreaths in remembrance. It's estimated 2,500 Americans died on D-Day.
More than 4,000 Allied troops were killed in total,but it was ultimately successful -- the largest amphibious landing in history.
Applause from well-wishers and onlookers.
People came to pay tribute to bravery.
Very few in modern day Normandy can remember D-Day, yet still this day is marked.
The length of time since 1944 means very few survivors remain.
But some are able to travel to Normandy, as they did 81 years ago.
Hegseth met some American World War II veterans.
They are a least in their nineties and older.
One man of 101 says he prays for the end of the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere.
There was a flypast by C-130 Hercules aircraft.
National anthems were played and people stood as the ceremony came to its conclusion.
Lecornu had told Hegseth France knows it owes America and those veterans who helped free Europe from the Nazis. Lecornu speaking of the young liberators, most barely 20, adding "we must not and do not forget their heroism, the blood shed for our freedom."
Pete Hegseth says "I think it's a moment to ask all of ourselves the very same question. Could I do that? Could you do that? Could we do that? Could our countries muster that? Do we believe in ourselves enough to invest in ourselves, to project power, to defend freedom?"
Hegseth said "good men are still needed to stand up" to threats without specifying.
His British counterpart also drawing parallels between then and now.
John Healey says, "The strength of our nations standing together in NATO to deter current conflicts and adversaries. The responsibility to safeguard D-Day's legacy of freedom rests today with us. So let us give everlasting honour to our Normandy veterans, for whom the "longest day" never ended. And let us find the strength to carry on in their names, and to carry forward their cause."
