World War II veterans hand over the duty of remembering D-Day

THE D-DAY GENERATION, smaller in number than ever, is back on the beaches of France where so much blood was spilled 81 years ago today. World War II veterans, now mostly centenarians, have returned with the same message they fought for then: Freedom is worth defending.

In what they acknowledge may be one of their last hurrahs, a group of nearly two dozen veterans who served in Europe and the Pacific is commemorating the fallen and getting rock-star treatment this week in Normandy — the first patch of mainland France that Allied forces liberated with the June 6, 1944, invasion and the greatest assembly of ships and planes the world had known.

With the march of time, the veterans’ groups are only getting smaller.

The Best Defense Foundation, a nonprofit that has been organizing their trips to Normandy since 2004, last year brought 50 veterans for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. This year, the number is 23.

As WWII’s survivors disappear, the responsibility is falling on the next generations that owe them the debt of freedom.

The exact number of surviving D-Day veterans is unknown, but the U.S. Veterans Administration says less than 1% of the 16.4 million Americans who served in the war were still living at the end of 2023, and 131 are dying every day.

It’s difficult to fathom the loss of these witnesses to history, including the events leading up the war, the brutal conflict itself and the Holocaust inflicted by Nazi Germany on Jews and others.

We are thankful that the survivors are continuing their efforts to share their stories. We have learned through painful experience that people forget all too easily. It’s imperative that we listen to these individuals, remember their stories and pass them on to generations born long after World War II concluded.

D-Day’s survivors are among the last ambassadors from the first half of the 20th century, an era when America at first rejected foreign entanglements but ultimately engaged.

The invasion itself — the slaughter, the horror, the heroics, the sacrifice — will soon take its place alongside Gettysburg or Saratoga as one of those long-ago battles that shaped who we are, but in ways we can’t really fathom.

Soldiers from many nations fought at Normandy — from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — as did resistance forces from nations still occupied by the Nazis — France, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Greece.

But the invasion was led by the United States, which had the advantages of wealth, industry, population and geographic distance.

The United States rescued freedom. And in the aftermath, the United States protected it and, through its example, spread its blessings across the globe.

The living memory of the individuals who fought and died may fade. But the 81st anniversary of D-Day is a good time to remember the lasting peace, prosperity and freedom that their sacrifice bought us, and that remains ours to keep or toss away.