Obama storms beachhead to Europe

US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama fly aboard Marine One over a cliff-top location west of Omaha Beach, after he participated in a D-Day ceremony. Photo / AP

PARIS - The hallowed site of Omaha Beach became the backdrop yesterday for sealing President Barack Obama's most ambitious foreign tour, a mission aimed at renewing America's covenant with Europe and cleansing toxic legacies in the Middle East.

Sixty-five years to the day that allied troops stormed ashore in Nazi-occupied France, Obama heaped praise on the liberators and their generation, describing their fight as a moral compass that could guide the troubled world of today.

"D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and the selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century," said Obama.

"At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found within themselves the ability to do something extraordinary."

As the Stars and Stripes flapped in the Channel breeze at the vast American military cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, Obama said, "No man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. As we face down the hardships and struggles of our time, and arrive at that hour for which we were born, we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore."

Obama's trip to Normandy was preceded by a tour of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. The bookend visits gave Europe a powerful reminder of its own history and its debt to America.

The commemoration at Colleville was also attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as a small, sadly dwindling band of veterans, including Obama's great uncle, Charlie Payne.

Ceremonies were held at other landing sites, including Arromanches, where British and Canadian forces came ashore, and Pegasus Bridge, where airborne British troops seized a vital crossing point to prevent it being used in a German counter-attack.

French people are profoundly grateful for the Liberation, and the sentiment for D-Day seems to have intensified in recent years as the living links with it are severed one by one.

But Obama's presence this year tinged the occasion with particular fervour, helping him in his task of cementing reconciliation with Europe after eight years under the widely-loathed George W. Bush.

Crowds lined streets in Normandy and Paris to cheer him wherever he passed, and politicians jostled to get within handshaking-distance of him. His overwhelming presence may even have subconsciously affected Brown, who in a commemorative speech accidentally referred to "Obama Beach" instead of "Omaha Beach".

The US President, to Sarkozy's reported disappointment, declined formal functions, choosing to devote time to his wife and two daughters, accompanying them to the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and a private restaurant.

Sarkozy got to meet Obama in Caen just before the D-Day commemorations. Their talks lasted less than an hour, but at a press conference afterwards, their back-slapping and declarations of unity sought to quell any suspicions of discord.

"I want to say in the strongest, most sincere terms that never in the history, perhaps, of our two countries, have the United States and France been so close to one another on major issues, major questions," said Sarkozy, whom Obama praised for leading France back into Nato's military command.

Before heading to Europe, Obama visited Saudi Arabia and Cairo, where he delivered ground-breaking speeches that held out a hand to the Muslim world and gave fresh impetus towards ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fountainhead of animosity towards the West.

The speeches have been praised for their boldness, vision and balance in many Muslim countries and in Europe, but these feelings also mingle with caution.

"I believe that with the new administration, with President Barack Obama, there is actually a unique opportunity now to see to it that this peace process - or let's perhaps be more careful, this negotiation process - can be revived again," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Yesterday the Taleban said that Obama's speech to the Muslim world was full of "deceptive slogans" and did nothing to change relations between America and Muslims.

It "had nothing substantial in terms of content in order to reduce the dissonance that has reached its peak between Muslims and America" the Taleban leadership said in a message posted on Islamist internet forums and translated by Site Intelligence Group.

A BRIEF HISTORY

The D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, saw more than 6800 ships, carrying 150,000 men, cross the English Channel to land on the French coastline.

RAF and American bombers opened the operation, with 11,500 planes dropping thousands of bombs, followed by paratroop drops to seize bridges and other targets.

About 6.30am the invasion force stormed an 80km stretch of coastline, which was divided into five zones. The British attacked beaches codenamed Sword and Gold; Canadian forces descended on Juno Beach; and the Americans landed at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.

The Germans, who were expecting the invasion at Calais, were caught by surprise but offered fierce resistance in bloody battles. More than 10,000 Allied troops were either killed or wounded, while the German Army suffered between 4000 and 8000 casualties.

But the beach-head was secure, and by August nearly three million Allied troops had landed. The advance across France and into Germany would take until May 1945.

- INDEPENDENT