Monday, Jun. 17, 1974
D-Day Plus 30 Years
On both sides of the Atlantic last week, old comrades peered across the decades at the magic, terrible day 30 years before when the Allied armies invaded Normandy. Omar Bradley, one of D-day's last surviving great generals, attended ceremonies on Utah Beach and paid homage "to all who sacrificed where only God could witness their charity to their fellow man." Hugh Polley then a Candain sergeant major, recalled being wounded three times. "Don't ask why I went back to the fight. I don't know myself. I landed in the first wave, and by God I wanted to finish it up." Jean-Paul Roncoli organized a French group that visited Arlington National Cemetery last week. He was a child in 1944, and he remembered that "a G.I. put me on the fender of a Jeep for a ride through town. He looked so tired, but he smiled and smiled. There was never a chance to say thank you, the soldiers went through so fast."
The anniversary evoked memories for many millions who never got near Normandy. All across the U.S. that Tuesday people had offered prayers. Parents and wives of servicemen, whatever their personal fears, could at last believe that the ordeal's end was beginning. Somehow the event seems even more distant than 30 years. There have been other wars, changing alliances, crises. None has stimulated the exultant unity of which D-day was the ensign. Hope, the real victor at Normandy and later World War II battlefields, went on to suffer a succession of blows that only now may be relenting.
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