Legacy of the D-day heroes

From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Monday 7th Jun 2004.

It has been a most moving weekend, a time for all of us to give thanks for the courage and sacrifice of the young men and women who were involved in Operation Overlord in which the Allies stormed the Normandy beaches and began to reclaim Europe from the Nazis.

Many stories have been retold over the last week of the momentous events of June 6, 1944 and the days that followed. There have been stories which have presented the big picture of the superbly-organised campaign and all the meticulous planning that went into it.

And there have been modestly-told stories of individual acts of gallantry and bravery from the ordinary people involved, including many Bradford men and women, who were plunged into a war that had to be fought and won if the evil of fascism was not to be allowed to overwhelm us.

Who knows what sort of a world we might be living in now, if the political and military minds of that time had not been up to the task they set themselves and the soldiers, sailors and aircrews had failed to find the courage and determination to do the job that was asked of them?

The freedom that we have taken for granted over the last 60 years was won at the cost of a great many lives lost on the Normandy beaches. Those fallen comrades will have been poignantly remembered by the veterans who visited those beaches at the weekend, many of them possibly for the last time.

Younger generations now need to be ready to carry that baton of remembrance into the future, out of respect and eternal gratitude.

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