Canadian veteran William Seifried walks off Juno Beach on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, on June 6.The Canadian Press
Last Thursday was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. As usual, the free world marked it by celebrating and honouring the sacrifices made in the name of freedom and democracy by thousands of Canadian, British and American troops on June 6, 1944.
That day, 24,000 allied soldiers landed on five beaches along 80 kilometres of heavily fortified Normandy coastline, or parachuted into German-occupied France behind enemy lines. More than 4,400 of them were killed, including 381 Canadians. The total number of allied casualties was over 10,000. In a single day.
The bravery of those men can’t be overstated and must never be forgotten. The liberation of Western Europe from Nazi tyranny had to begin with a massive amphibious and airborne assault spearheaded by soldiers willing to put their bodies in the path of a horrific line of fire.
They did it knowingly, selflessly, in the name of the struggle for freedom. But that struggle, so linked to their sacrifices, didn’t end when D-Day was over. There was more war ahead for those still alive on D-Day plus 1, D-Day plus 2, D-Day plus 3, and through to Germany’s surrender.
Monday is the 80th anniversary of D-Day plus 4. Andy Rooney, the late CBS pundit famous for his monologues on 60 Minutes, recalled landing on Utah Beach on June 10, 1944, in a 2004 clip that circulated on social media last week.
He spoke of the “row on row” of dead American soldiers wrapped in “olive-drab blankets, just their feet sticking out at the bottom.” He said that it must have seemed to the survivors of the first landing waves as though D-Day had been a failure, what with so many of their comrades dead or injured, and so much equipment lost.
In truth, the first day of Operation Overlord failed to achieve many of its leaders’ objectives. Then, after the allied forces had secured the beaches, there was a gruelling advance inland against dug-in German defenses. An all-out infantry attack on the city of Caen failed at the end of June. At one point, with the U.S. forces blocked at multiple points, allied leaders feared a stalemate would set in.
The village-by-village fighting continued into July. The tide eventually turned in August, when the allied forces advanced far enough to threaten to encircle the German forces. That led to a German retreat across the Seine River, and after that to the liberation of Paris on Aug. 26.
By the end of August, the Battle of Normandy was over, and Operation Overlord ended. But there was still a winter’s worth of fearsome fighting ahead against Hitler’s western forces, until the the Germans surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945 – 11 months after D-Day.
Those who celebrate D-Day today should remember that June 6, 1944, was just the start of long battle to preserve freedom and democracy in Europe. The heroes of that “day of days” richly deserve our commemoration, but the truest way to honour them is to understand that the fight they symbolize requires as much commitment from us to its goal as they demonstrated.
Too often these days, it can feel like democracy has been stalemated by the forces of fascism.
Europe is once again under threat from a land-hungry dictator: Vladimir Putin in Russia. The authoritarian communist regime under Xi Jinping in China is threatening democratic Taiwan. The two dictatorships, along with other bad actors, are spreading poisonous disinformation on social media and meddling in the elections of democratic countries, Canada included.
In the United States, the country that by far suffered the most casualties in the Battle of Normandy, Donald Trump is openly vowing to destroy the institutions and norms that are the foundation of the democracy all those American soldiers died for – a platform that may win him the election this fall.
Democracy, and the individual rights it strives to provide citizens, are at a low ebb, as they were on June 6, 1944.
The tide didn’t turn in a single day then, and it won’t today, because there can be no single moment that can ever guarantee that democracy is preserved for future generations.
It requires a long, slow and painful march to preserve democracy, with setbacks and moments of despair along the way. But it’s a fight that will always be won if people stand up for it.
Monday is D-Day plus 29,224. Ten years from now will be D-Day plus 32,876. Where will you be standing then?