The 65th Anniversary of D-Day on the Normandy Beaches

PanARMENIAN.Net - Veterans of the World War II take part in the ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. Commemoration events, from re-enactments to school concerts, were being held in seaside towns and along the five landing beaches that stretch across 80 kilometers of Normandy coastline. The big event is Saturday, when Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Canadian and British prime ministers Gordon Brown and Steven Harper and Prince Charles gather for a ceremony amid the rows of white crosses and Stars of David at the American cemetery, which is U.S. territory.



On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied troops departed England on planes and ships, made the trip across the English Channel and attacked the beaches of Normandy in an attempt to break through Hitler's "Atlantic Wall" and break his grip on Europe. Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing nearly three months it took to secure the Allied capture of Normandy.



U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Paris on Saturday evening, after his short visit to Germany, where he and the German chancellor Angela Merkel visited museum located at the place of the former concentration camp Bukhenvald.



Barack Obama will have talks on Saturday evening with president of France Nicolas Sakozy in Caen, the two will then attend the anniversary event at the American cemetery, next to one of the D-Day landing sites dubbed Omaha beach, where thousands of white stone crosses mark the graves of the U.S. war dead.