Obama brings fresh focus to D-Day ritual

PARIS - When President Barack Obama joins in ceremonies at Omaha Beach on Saturday, he may care to reflect on how the world has whirled since United States troops hit the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago.

Two generations have grown since US, British and Canadian forces began the liberation of Nazi-occupied continental Europe. The Cold War has come and gone, replaced by different perils. Black American servicemen fought and died in segregation in World War II. Now their country has an African-American President.

But the symbolism of June 6, 1944, rides above these changes, imbuing the D-Day shrine with a power that reminds the world of America's ideals and Europe's historic debt to it.

After delivering a speech in Cairo aimed at bridging US differences with Muslims, Obama will visit the Buchenwald death camp in Germany before heading for the necropolis at Colleville-sur-Mer, emblem of America's greatest moment of military glory.

"We will share a moment together in Normandy, on the beaches, and we will meditate in the cemetery where there are so many young Americans who paid with their life for the freedom of our country," President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

The backdrop for the visit is majestic and spine-chilling in equal measure, famously seized upon by Steven Spielberg for the opening and closing scenes in Saving Private Ryan.

A piece of French soil granted for American use in perpetuity, the 70ha site houses the remains of 9387 American servicemen who died in Normandy and a memorial to 1557 missing. Dazzling white headstones, mostly crosses and the occasional Star of David, face westwards to the US, amid emerald lawns, rose beds and pine trees wafting in the breeze of the English Channel.

A few hundred metres away, down a gentle slope, is the 6km stretch of beach where frontline troops of the 1st and 29th US infantry divisions were cut to shreds before survivors overwhelmed the German defences.

At the 50th anniversary of D-Day, a commonly voiced fear among historians was that interest in the event would fade away, and its lessons would be lost.

They need not have worried. The landing sites, which now comprise scores of monuments supported by an excellent D-Day museum at nearby Caen, draw 4 million visitors every year. More than 1.4 million of them go to Colleville, and there can be few who leave without being deeply moved. Schoolchildren are bussed to the cemetery, whose sheer size gives an overwhelming impression of the scale of the conflict.

Local villagers have an extraordinary fondness for the Americans and have gone into top gear to prepare for the Obama pilgrimage.

"There is great enthusiasm," said Marie-Therese Cueff, president of an association called Les Fleurs de la Memoire (The Flowers of Memory), in which local children "adopt" a grave of a fallen soldier and bring flowers to it.

The last President to come was George W. Bush, whose 2004 visit was coloured by the war he unleashed on Iraq.

"This time it will be a very different atmosphere," said Cueff. "Obama carries the optimism of the whole world with him, not just of the French."

"The anniversary has taken on enormous proportions," said Colleville's Mayor, Patrick Thomines.

"There are fewer and fewer [war] veterans who are now able to make the trip, the United States has elected a black President with worldwide popularity, and there is the political-military rapprochement between Paris and Washington."

Six thousand invitations have been sent out to local inhabitants. Everyone will have to go through several layers of security, provided by 1500 French and American police and troops, and wait several hours for the VIPs to show up. The two-hour commemoration will include speeches, the laying of wreaths and a fly-past by French and American warplanes.

Left-wing French critics say Sarkozy is desperate for a photo opportunity with the popular Obama to beef up his own sagging support on the eve of elections to the European Parliament.

The British tabloids, meanwhile, say Sarkozy should also have invited the Queen, who is head of state of Britain and Canada. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will also be in Normandy to attend ceremonies.

Obama said yesterday he was trying to arrange for an invitation to be sent to the Queen.

SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

False fact one: The French have "snubbed" the Queen by failing to invite her to celebrate the 65th anniversary of D-Day on Saturday.

False fact two: The British Government, and diplomatic service, have behaved despicably because they failed to ensure that the Queen was sent an invitation by the French.

False fact three: The French Government has traduced the memory of British and Canadian troops by describing D-Day as "mainly a Franco-American affair".

Fact one: There was an enormous "international event" to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day five years ago, to which the Queen was invited. There were similar events for the 50th and 40th anniversaries, to which the Queen was invited. There was no sizeable, official celebration, except by the veterans themselves, of, say, the 45th or the 55th anniversaries.

Fact two: The "international ceremony" at the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach on Saturday is not an "international ceremony" on the same scale as the 60th anniversary celebration. It was something put together in relative haste after President Barack Obama let it be known a few weeks ago that he would like to attend the D-Day commemoration this year. President Nicolas Sarkozy let it be known that he would also like to attend.

Fact three: The Obama-Sarkozy event is a commemoration in an American military cemetery beside an American invasion beach in France. When the French Government said that it was "mainly a Franco-American affair", that is what they meant.

The upshot: Under pressure Gordon Brown decided to attend this year's veteran-led British ceremonies on Saturday. He also decided to attend the Franco-American ceremony at Omaha Beach. It was his decision to go to the US-French ceremony, without the Queen, which made the event "international" and produced the barrage of disapproval last week.

- INDEPENDENT