Reflecting on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy

Exactly 25 years ago, I was on the beaches of Normandy, as a Toronto Star reporter covering the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings. It was a remarkable event and I worked from the pre-dawn hours well into the evening that day, producing three stories for The Star’s package to be published the next day: the emotional speech by then Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Juno Beach, where Canadians had come ashore on D-Day; a write-through on the rest of the day’s events, including the major gathering of world leaders who came together to mark the 50th anniversary; and finally, a personal reflection that I banged out on my laptop late at night, after the rest of my work was done. The final story was the most meaningful for me and a quarter century later, I would like to share it with you now:

Suddenly, the war’s dreadful reality hits home
Toronto Star — June 7, 1994

By Allan Thompson

JUNO BEACH, Normandy — Until these past few days, World War II for me was the black shell casing that served as a door stop at A.E. Greer’s General Store in Glammis.

Ernie Greer brought it back from the war, but I remember it was always full of gum wrappers as it held open the door at the shop in the southwestern Ontario hamlet where I grew up.

World War II was television documentaries narrated by commentators with staccato voices and movies like The Longest Day and The Guns Of Navarone.

It was playing war with my cousin John and my other buddies in the field behind the barn, firing my plastic machine gun that went rat-a-tat-tat until my brother Gordon smashed it against the granary wall.

It was craggy-faced veterans at the cenotaph on Nov. 11, and the Remembrance Day assembly at school, where kids mimicking war crawled across the stage on their bellies, lighting those little red firecrackers for effect.

It was the veteran I met on a street corner in Canada two weeks ago, holding out a round white sailor’s cap for donations.

That was World War II for me — until these past few days.

I had the chance to visit southern England and Normandy as part of the media entourage covering Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s part in events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landing of June 6, 1944.

For me, World War II and D-Day will never be the same.
Now it is veterans like Stewart Bray, who attended the dedication at Gosport, near Portsmouth, to mark the embarkation of the D-Day armada.

I asked Bray what this day made him think of and he paused for a while, looking straight ahead, then his lip began to quiver and he started to cry.

It is the trip we took across the English Channel in a Canadian Forces Hercules aircraft.

Scrunched in the plane flying to Normandy, I simply could not imagine jumping out of that aircraft at night into enemy territory. It was scary enough when the landing gear made that screeching sound coming down.

It is the sight of hundreds of paratroopers floating down from a wave of Allied aircraft on the wheat fields near Ranville, a commemorative event in the first French town liberated on D-Day.

There were poppies growing in the ditches outside Ranville, real ones.

It is the pock holes in the side of the churches in St. Aubin, near Juno Beach, and the Canadian flags fluttering from balconies along the streets of Normandy villages.

It is the beaches, like the one at Courseulles, where a single wreath, with its red and white carnations and ring of poppies, lay in the white sand yesterday.

I stood on the balcony in our hotel overlooking those beaches at 2 a.m. and couldn’t help but think of the thousands of scared young men — many of them 10 years younger than me — huddling in boats and landing craft at that very moment a half century earlier, waiting for the great assault.

But most of all, it is the cemetery at Beny-Reviers, where more than 2,000 Canadians lie buried beneath lustrous white tombstones, lined up with military precision, row on row.

We went there last night just before sundown for a memorial service attended by Chretien, Governor-General Ray Hnatyshyn, French President Francois Mitterrand and hundreds of vets.

It is a serene place. The sun had broken through the clouds on its way to the horizon, and there were birds singing.

After the ceremony I walked among the graves to do my bit as the cynical journalist, to interview veterans about their experiences, to get the story.

There were names like MacLean and Walters, Nassar and Goldstein on the tombstones I was walking past. Many died on June 6, 1944.

Most were 18, 19 or 20 years old.

Some graves had no name but were marked simply “Known unto God.”

I couldn’t get past the first row of those graves.

I don’t want this to sound corny, but there was nothing I could do but sit down on a bench and cry — and hope none of my colleagues would see me.

That’s when I saw George MacFarlane, posing for a picture beside a grave. He was visiting his wartime buddy for the first time in 50 years, the kid from Guelph he met when he signed up in Petawawa, the guy who died before he even had a chance to get off the landing craft on D-Day.

I talked to George MacFarlane about his friend, his memories and his war. Then I shook his hand and said thank you.

That’s what World War II means to me now.