They're invading Normandy again

Yesterday's battlefields are today's tourist attractions, writes ELLEN CREAGER

With the youngest World War II veterans pushing 80, this year's 60th anniversary of D-Day - and the biggest battles of the South Pacific - is a poignant one.

By 2014, only a fraction of the men and women who served in World War II will still be living, and some day soon all memory of the war will be second-hand, relegated to history's pages.

So in June, Normandy's beaches will be flooded with pilgrims arriving by yacht, helicopter, bicycle, barge, bus, car, train and cruise ship.

Hotels are booked. World leaders have reservations. Many tours are sold out.

But trips are available all year for D-Day sites and battlegrounds in Europe. If you want a more relaxed visit, go in the late northern spring or early autumn.

Tour operators hope the D-Day anniversary will help Americans feel good about returning to France. Relations between the two countries are cool because of differing viewpoints over the Iraq conflict.

Meanwhile, 60th anniversary tours in the South Pacific will commemorate major battles there.

It was 60 years ago that US forces recaptured the Philippines and American General Douglas MacArthur walked ashore to fulfil his vow of 1942 - "I shall return".

Battles were fought on Guam, Saipan, Guadalcanal, Tarawa and dozens of other islands.

World War II tours are still popular in the Pacific, but the tourists have changed. Most of the travellers 10 years ago were ex-servicemen. Now there are fewer veterans and more of their children and grandchildren, as well as the historians.

However, when vets do go back, they are astounded at the reception in small island villages. "Often, 99 per cent of the village turns out," one travel agent said. The visits "pluck at every string of the emotional chord".

Nobody is waiting 60 years to return to Vietnam. Veterans and thousands of other tourists are making it one of the hottest destinations this year.

Also open to tourists is the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, which remains tense 51 years after the conflict ended.

But war tours there are few and far between - Korea has not caught on with American travellers.

"It's a funny, tiny subculture of the tour business," says Roy Montgomery, owner of California Pacific tours in San Francisco, which offers tours to the region for those interested in Korean War lore.

"If Grandpa was in World War II, it's an excuse to go to Europe, and the whole family wants to go to Europe. Vietnam is very popular for tourists. But nobody knows about Korea unless North Korea is doing something crazy."

Come June, however, Normandy is where the action will be.