On 6 June 2021, the 77th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings, the new Normandy Memorial was opened at Ver sur Mer, overlooking Gold Beach. The names of the 22,442 servicemen and women under British command who died on 6 June 1944, and in the subsequent Battle of Normandy, are inscribed on 160 stone columns. The site also remembers the French civilians who died during this period. About 100 veterans and their families, who were unable to attend the ceremony at Ver-sur-Mer because of coronavirus restrictions, gathered at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to watch remotely.
George Batts, a Normandy veteran now 95 years old, who had dreamed of this day for many years and energetically raised money to build the memorial said, “Only those who were there on D-Day can truly know what it was like. We lost a lot of our mates on those beaches. Now, at long last, Britain has a fitting memorial.” Prince Charles, who is patron of the Normandy Memorial Trust, said: “The memory of these remarkable individuals should be preserved for future generations as an example of personal courage and sacrifice, for the benefit of the wider national and, indeed, international community.”
Remembering the past is important. Future generations owe an incalculable debt to those who gave their lives to secure the freedom we enjoy. George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher, said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” However, many of those who survived D-Day, including my wife’s father, didn’t talk about the traumas they experienced, they wished they could forget. At remembrance services the words of Laurence Binyon are recited, “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme example of love, courage and self-sacrifice. The night before he died, Jesus shared a Passover meal with his disciples. He broke bread and passed around a cup of wine saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” When Christians celebrate Holy Communion they remember their Saviour, Jesus, who died that they might be forgiven and rose from the dead to give them a living hope. They also look forward to the day when Jesus will return and men “will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
We will remember them
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