It is a bit of slap in the face that the French government has said the D-Day ceremonies and celebrations coming up soon are more of a French-American affair. Given that the British Empire fielded three assault beaches versus the American two, tends to make me think that we might just have had a say in how D-Day went.
In fact, from the D-Day museum pages:
On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. In the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7900 airborne troops.
So this upcoming celebration, shouldn’t it be a French-American-British-Canadian event? Why do the French not consider us important in marking this solemn event?
Not that I blame the French mind you, I think it more in line of something like this. The British government got the invite and his lord-high-and-mighty Prime Minister Mr Brown decided that he alone would represent the UK. He of course, is not our Head of State, as would the French and American representatives attending be (in fact if the Queen did attend it would be as British and Canadian Head of State). Only now a stink is being made of it, he’s come out and said she would be welcome.
Tags: d-day ceremony, d-day service, queen
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