The 70th Anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2014, has come and gone. Dignitaries in attendance at the formal ceremonies
included President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II to honor “more than 150,000 American, British, Canadian and other Allied D-Day” soldiers, many of whom gave their lives to defeat the German forces who began World War II.
However, now that the somber ceremonies and many celebrations are over, history buffs are able to learn about D-Day by exploring hundreds of websites on the Internet. For example Dday-Overlord.com provides over 1500 pages giving “precise explanations on the various military encounters and operations maps, many photographs of the war, and of the historical places as they are now.” In addition, they can also find excellent information of D-Day at History.com, the U.S. Army website, the National World War II Museum, and, of course, Wikipedia.
But possibly more important to them are sites where pictures and videos of D-Day can be viewed. Examples include The Normandy Invasion: The Story in Pictures, Pictures of D-Day, Operation Overlord, D-Day then and now: A view from above, D-Day, World War II and Looking Back: D-Day in Pictures.
Perhaps most impressive is a site where Peter Macdiarmid provides “photographs of locations in France and England to match with archive images taken before, during and after the D-Day landings.” Just look at the pictures of sites then click on them to see how they look today!
There are also personal stories from veterans relating their participation in the D-Day landing and other activities such as that provided by USA Today. And here in the U.S., most people are unaware that there is a National D-Day Memorial located in Bedford, VA. There was a special three-day series of events held over the June 6-8, 2014 D-Day weekend.
As we remember and honor D-Day 2014, we must pause to remember that, according to statistics published by the Veterans Administration, World War II vets are dying at a rate of over 600 a day. After all, these veterans were members of “The Greatest Generation” and responsible for the freedoms we have today. Therefore, we need to be knowledgeable of what they went through on that fateful day.
In the mean time, whenever and wherever you find a WW II veteran, shake his or her hand, and thank them for their service. It is the least thing we can do to honor their service.