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Yomiuri Shimbun
2 days ago
- General
- Yomiuri Shimbun
D-Day Veterans Return to Normandy to Mark 81st Anniversary of Landings
The Associated Press World War II veteran Jake Larson meets youths during ceremonies at the US cemetery to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings, Friday, June 6, 2025 in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy. COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler's regime. Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments. Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died. Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy. 'Freedom is everything,' he said. 'I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.' Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commemorated the anniversary of the D-Day landings, in which American soldiers played a leading role, with veterans at the American Cemetery overlooking the shore in the village of Colleville-sur-Mer. French Minister for the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu told Hegseth that France knows what it owes to its American allies and the veterans who helped free Europe from the Nazis. 'We don't forget that our oldest allies were there in this grave moment of our history. I say it with deep respect in front of you, veterans, who incarnate this unique friendship between our two countries,' he said. Hegseth said France and the United States should be prepared to fight if danger arises again, and that 'good men are still needed to stand up.' 'Today the United States and France again rally together to confront such threats,' he said, without mentioning a specific enemy. 'Because we strive for peace, we must prepare for war and hopefully deter it.' The June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France used the largest-ever armada of ships, troops, planes and vehicles to breach Hitler's defenses in western Europe. A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy, 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle — and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities — killed around 20,000 French civilians between June and August 1944. The exact number of German casualties is unknown, but historians estimate between 4,000 and 9,000 men were killed, wounded or missing during the D-Day invasion alone. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed on D-Day. Of those, 73,000 were from the U.S. and 83,000 from Britain and Canada. Forces from several other countries were also involved, including French troops fighting with Gen. Charles de Gaulle. The Allies faced around 50,000 German forces. More than 2 million Allied soldiers, sailors, pilots, medics and other people from a dozen countries were involved in the overall Operation Overlord, the battle to wrest western France from Nazi control that started on D-Day.
Boston Globe
27-01-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
More DEI fallout: Air Force scraps course that used videos of Tuskegee Airmen and female WWII pilots
The problem may not be with the historical videos themselves, but that they were used in Air Force basic military training DEI coursework. However, the lack of clearer guidance has sent the Air Force and other agencies scrambling to take the broadest approach to what content is removed to make sure they are in compliance. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the 'Red Tails' were the nation's first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit and their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war. Advertisement They flew P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang and other fighter aircraft to escort American bombers on dangerous missions over Germany. Before the fighter escorts began accompanying the slow and heavy U.S. bombers, losses were catastrophic due to getting dive-bombed and strafed by German aircraft. In a statement late Saturday, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. the nonprofit foundation created to preserve the legacy of those pilots, said it was 'strongly opposed' to the removal of the videos to comply with Trump's order. The stories of the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs 'are an essential part of American history and carried significant weight in the World War II veteran community. We believe the content of these courses does not promote one category of service member or citizen over another. They are simply a part of American military history that all service members should be made aware of,' the group said. Advertisement President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda in 2007. In 2020, in his State of the Union address, Trump announced he had promoted one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Charles McGee, to brigadier general. McGee died in 2022 at age 102. The WASPs contributed to World War II by learning to fly and ferry new bombers off the assembly lines to airfields where they were needed to ship off to war — freeing up male pilots to focus on combat missions overseas. They earned the right to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery just in the last decade. The Air Force, like other branches, has recently tried to broaden the number of people they reach to consider military careers like aviation that historically have had few minority service members in their ranks.
