“The Channel stopped you, but not us. Now it’s our turn”
-graffiti on the side of a Sixth Airlander Brigade Horsa glider
In a few days’ time we will be marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The 6th of June 1944 was the day over 120,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen with 7,000 vessels and hundreds of aircraft attacked the Normandy English Channel coast to attempt the perilous task of driving the forces of Hitler’s Germany out of France and the other European countries they had invaded and occupied.
6th June 2024 will variously be called an anniversary, a day to be marked, or a day to be celebrated. If we choose to celebrate, we need to be very careful about what we are celebrating.
I was part of the first generation born immediately after World War II. I was “of” the war but not “in” the war. I grew up surrounded by what it left behind. To me it was normal. My parents would take my brother and I on day trips to London and Portsmouth. The bomb sites and the flattened neighbourhoods were to my brother and I quite normal. We lived with rationing until the mid-1950s. I often thought the little ration books with the cut-out coupons were the most valued possessions in our home. Shortages and bomb sites were part of normal life.
It was taken for granted by us that all the adults in our young lives had in some way been involved in the war. Our mother and aunts either worked as nurses or in munition factories. At the beginning of the war my mother and her sister had escorted some young children to an evacuation site in Sussex. My first mother-in-law escorted a group of children by ship to Canada. My male relatives either fire-watched or served in different branches of the armed services. Two uncles were involved in the invasion of Normandy.
You would think, looking back, talk of the war would have dominated conversation over the kitchen table – but it did not. There were no tales of bravery and daring. If I wanted that, I would have to turn to the comic books on sale at the local newsagent. They were full of pictures of square-jawed British soldiers throwing grenades at cowardly German soldiers.
My schoolteachers had all served in the war as did my first work colleagues. Again, talk of the war was rare although I had a Religious Education teacher who would entertain my class with tales of his war experiences. Looking back, I suspect he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The war was rarely talked of (apart from by my RE teacher). My first father-in-law was at Dunkirk. His voice choked on the one occasion I recall him talking about it. This was because his friend sheltering next to him on the sand of Dunkirk beach had put his head up for a look around and had been killed.
My uncle Alf being decorated by General Montgomery somewhere in Normandy.
Looking back I feel the general feeling was that the war had been a period of loss, fear, shortages and uncertainty. Fighting was something that had to be done. However, there was little desire to wallow in it, to examine it and relive it. It was just all too painful.
Indeed, support for the annual remembrance event in November began to fall away in the 1960s and 1970s. There was a growing feeling that it was time to move on, to leave the past in the past, and focus on the future. This was reversed in the 1980s probably spurred on by the Falklands War, and now Remembrance Day is an embedded part of the national annual round of events. At one time this was not a given.
This brings me back to what we are celebrating on 6th June 2024 if indeed it is a celebration at all. My fear is that some will try to hijack it and seek to rewrite history. It will be refocused through the lens of post-Brexit Britain. It will be used to feed a xenophobic narrative that in part drove Brexit. The events in a few days’ time could easily be spun to fit an English exceptionalist narrative. Carefully placed Union flags around a story that the English had to invade Europe because the French could not defend themselves could easily develop. It is not a long stretch to suggest we English do not want Europeans working here and our only role is to defend Europeans from themselves every now and then. We English are exceptional, we sit to one side as we do not need others, and we only intervene when we think others have messed things up.
An examination of 6th June 1944 will tell another story. The invasion was largely funded, and therefore, led by the United States. The supreme commander was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an American. He led the planning and gave the final orders. The US supplied much of the equipment. It was American finance, resources and infrastructure that made the invasion possible. The United Kingdom simply could not have done it on its own. We simply lacked the resources.
On the day 2,501 Americans were killed, making up more than half of the total Allied deaths that day (source: National Geographic History May/June 2024).
D-Day and ultimately the following Battle of Normandy were successful because of team effort and international collaboration. Running up the beaches that day, taking their lives into their hands, were not only Brits but Americans, Canadians and representatives from various European countries who had managed to escape Hitler’s Europe and join Allied armed forces. The pilots above were not only Brits and Americans but also Poles and Czechs.
We should also remember that many French citizens risked their lives to support the Allies. They did not enjoy any degree of protection under international law and would certainly have been put to death if caught.
To push the Germans out of Normandy the Allies had to resort to flattening several towns including Caen and St. Malo taking the lives of hundreds of more French citizens.
D-Day was successful because of an international effort. The Allies represented the most successful partnership in the history of warfare. It was a joint effort to establish again across Europe the rights later to be enshrined in the European Declaration of Human Rights. It also gave people of goodwill the opportunity to build a new Europe on the foundations of mutual understanding, respect and interdependence. The first building blocks of 80 years of peace in Western Europe were laid on 6th June 1944.
It is countries respecting each other, trading with each other and sharing their cultural heritages that delivers peace and prosperity. However, this is under treat from isolationist and nationalist political movements in many European countries including the UK. Brexit was an act which isolated the UK from its European neighbours. There are many in Europe who want to return to the barriers to cooperation that existed across Europe prior to 1939. They want this so that individual rights that became the dividend of D-Day can be removed. Freedom of expression and a free press are high on this list. For some the elected right-wing dictatorship we see in Russia is the model. Orban in Hungary is pushing in a similar direction as is the new Prime Minister in Czechia. The battle between authoritarianism and freedom of choice is currently being fought on the streets of Croatia. It has already, for a time, been lost in Belarus. France, Holland, Spain and Germany have well established movements endowed in anti-liberty rhetoric.
6th June 2024 should not be hijacked by this movement. Instead in should be a celebration of what can be achieved when countries work together for the common good, prepared to fight to protect democracy, civil liberties and individual and press freedoms.
Perhaps above all it is a final opportunity to remember those who crossed the English Channel and did not return. A staggering 73,000 Allied service personnel died on D-Day and the following Battle of Normandy. In addition, hundreds of French civilians also died as did an unknown number of German soldiers – far in excess of the Allied deaths.
6th June 2024 should be a day to remember both individual sacrifice plus those who used that day to build 75 years of peace in Western Europe.
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