Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
D-Day: 65th Anniversary
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Some media commentators have suggested that the 65th anniversary will be in effect the last major commemoration and that by the 70th anniversary in 2014 the veterans will be either to few or too elderly to make it worthwhile. Is this true?
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Message 2
Posted by oldbess (U13929099) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
Sadly, I think there may be a grain of truth in this.How many other major battles de we commemorate nearly a hundred years after the event?
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Message 3
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
We commemorated the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar 4 years ago.
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Message 4
Posted by Old Hermit (U2900766) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
And there was a fair bit of coverage and commemoration for the 90th Anniversary of the end of the First World War last year....
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Message 5
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Saturday, 6th June 2009
We might not, but the French do, an example is the Siege of Orleans which was first commemorated in 1429 and has been celebrating (wars and invasion excepted) since then.
There should be no reason why D-Day should not be remembered for many years and we should not forgot what they were fighting for. -
Message 6
Posted by MB (U177470) on Sunday, 7th June 2009
I suspect that after the mess the government made of this year's commemoration that there will be calls for something on the 70th anniversary and with the Queen present. It is possible that the 66th anniversary might be slightly larger event that it would otherwise have been.
I must say that I found some of the discussions on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ4 in the evening with the military historians, CGS etc and Fiona Bruce very interesting. Shows what can be done if you get some enthusiastic experts together on live TV. -
Message 7
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Sunday, 7th June 2009
Although I disagree with it, I do seem to recall that firm noises were made five years ago that the 60th comemoration would be the last to be attended by our Government and Royalty. Perhaps the Queen's absence has been an act of consistency rather than due to some international snub.
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Message 8
Posted by Grand Falcon Railroad (U3267675) on Monday, 8th June 2009
"How many other major battles de we commemorate nearly a hundred years after the event?"
Battle of The Boyne - July (1) 12, 1690 (2009) -whenever Protestant Ulster dies its final death.
However I think we'll increasingly go toward "big annivesaries" e.g. death of last WW1 veteran then 100th year after armistice, 100yrs since outbreak of WW2 and 100yrs after VJ day. -
Message 9
Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 8th June 2009
On the other hand TV stations love anniversaries because it gives them a good excuse to dig out old documentaries and feature films. The cost of the Outside Broadcast covering any commemoration can be quite low - the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ coverage on Saturday was obviously done quite cheaply.
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Message 10
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Monday, 8th June 2009
Perhaps the Queen's absence has been an act of consistency rather than due to some international snub.Β
That's exactly what happened, but the press latched onto her not being invited as though it was a delibate snub to the British or the Queen personally.
What actually happened was that quite late in the day President Obama decided that he wanted to spend D-Day at one of the US beaches and a quick Franco-American ceremony was organised (or more accurately, a larger ceremony than the one that is always held each year). It was this that Sarkozy was referring to as a French-American affair, not D-Day per se as reported by some British papers too stupid to actually look at the real story (anything to sell papers!!).
The Queen went to Normandy on the 50th and 60th anniversary of D-Day, but not the 55th. And as you mention Lairig, the 60th one was the last one that she would attend anyway.
So all in all, some of the British press managed to make it a controversial issue when no snub was there to begin with.
Harrumph! -
Message 11
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Monday, 8th June 2009
@ LairigGhru.
I believe that the Royal family traditionally only attend events on the ten year anniversaries, which is partly the reason why the Queen wasn't at the 65th D-Day commemorations (whatever other reasons may also have interferred!) -
Message 12
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
Thank you all for those replies.
It’s interesting to consider the commemoration of battles in the past. As dmatt47 has pointed out some events such as the Siege of Orleans were commemorated as historic events almost as soon as they took place.
Tourists were also visiting Waterloo in the autumn of 1815 and (somewhat incredibly) there were already organized tours of the First World War western front battlefields as early as 1919. Some battles have even been earmarked for sightseeing even before they took place.
An example would be the First Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861 during the opening stage of the American Civil War. Many civilians from Washington had got up early in the morning to travel out to get the best vantage points to watch the battle. Telescopes, binoculars and picnic baskets were taken along. They obviously got more than they bargained for, however, as ladies fainted when the reality of what was taking place became apparent and several of the civilian sightseers were themselves killed when later in the day the Union army turned and fled stampeding the onlookers in the process.
The phenomenon of veterans themselves returning to a battlefield is particularly fascinating. The Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of Gettysburg are obvious cases in this and one wonders how often other battles in history were revisited in later years by those who took part in them.
In the current example we have veterans of the Battle of Normandy returning 65 years on - for the veterans today is D-Day+19. It’s possible that veterans of, say, the Battle of Bosworth (1485) could have returned to the battlefield 65 years later in 1550 during the reign of Edward VI when both Henry VII and Henry VIII (not even born when the battle took place) were already dead. And conceivably veterans of the Battle of Hastings (1066) could have returned to Senlac Hill 65 years later in 1131 which would have been during the reign of Henry I.
Are there any other examples of historic battles which would later appear to belong to a totally different era and yet would have veterans still living in that later time? -
Message 13
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
The whole "Queen being snubbed" thing was just a media creation, and to make it seem worse, the media are postulating that this will be the last commemmoration.
Of course it won't. That's just utter nonsense. -
Message 14
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
It depends on the interest of the Leaders of the UK, USA and France to commemorate further D-Day anniversaries and hold it worthwile. This year attendet less veterans the commemoration than five years ago. So without living and attending veterans it doesnΒ΄t have to mean that it would have no further sense for commemorate D-Day, because it was an key-event and a further tourning point in Europes history.
By the way, 2014 is the 100rd anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. I wonder if there will be any commemoration about that. 1914 is - in my opinion - also the timemark for the start of the slow downfall for the second British Empire which took five decades from 1914 on until most of the former colonies got their independence.
IΒ΄ve read some articels in the newspapers about the absence of HM Queen Elisabeth II. and what went wrong, so do I remember - was more the fault of the French Government for not inviting the Queen. The PM Gordon Brown looked miserable on pictures by attending D-Day commemoration.
Possible, that D-Day anniversaries might get lost of interest by the former combat nations, but I am not sure of that. -
Message 15
Posted by MB (U177470) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
"and one wonders how often other battles in history were revisited in later years by those who took part in them. "
I went to a lecture about Culloden by an archaeologist who has been trying to find where the British army casualties were buried. There is an area where it was though they were so they searched the area with metal detectors. They found several coins from that period and one theory is that soldiers from nearby Fort George might have visited the site and placed coins on the crosses marking burials of comrades killed in the battle or just soldiers from their regiment. The tradition of placing a coin on a grave marker of a soldier has been noted in several parts of the world. -
Message 16
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
In that case I hope they were super-methodical and recorded everything with even more precision than they normally would.
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Message 17
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
Perhaps it depends on what we would regard as a fitting commemoration. Some years ago I was very fortunate to attend the little daily ceremony at the Menin Gate. It was a short but very dignified and also a very moving experience(I was surprised how many school children were present) and I must confess that I preferred that short devotion far more than I do our own efforts on Armistice Day.
If there are any Belgians who read these posts may I add a simple thank you for your countries continuing recognition for the dead. -
Message 18
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Sunday, 12th July 2009
Do we not continue to remmember 1066
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