What can one say when a 97-year-old veteran parachutes into France? My chapeau was well and truly tipped. Veterans were the stars of last week’s D-Day commemorations, not just for their undoubted courage but also the way they spoke so movingly about their fallen comrades. One 93-year old veteran said: “I’m no hero. All the heroes are dead.” The way so many still come together to mark this event three-quarters of a century on is inspiring. One is struck by the number of people now remembering what their grandparents did in 1944. The leaders of the countries involved may all make lofty speeches embellished with all the right-sounding notes, but they are not the stars of the show. Of all of them, perhaps only 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth II truly understands what it is about. She has led these celebrations for decades and remembers the war and the sacrifices. She transitioned seamlessly from the pageantry of the state visit of the US president to the more somber tones of the D-Day commemoration. D-Day mattered. It was no foregone conclusion, no slam dunk. The stakes were incredibly high. Adolf Hitler believed that, if the German armed forces could repel the Allied invasion, they would never try to invade Western Europe again. He could then relocate forces back to the Eastern front and compel Joseph Stalin to agree terms. The consequences of failure were clear. If the Allied forces managed to establish themselves in France, the crucial German industrial heartland of the Ruhr would be exposed. Hitler’s challenge was that his forces were massively overextended. He was fighting in the east, the south, the west and even over the skies in Germany. This was the first military insertion into Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” Some had planned and trained for two years for the effort. Imagine being one of the first British paratroopers or glider-borne troops dropped into enemy territory, dodging German flak to capture key bridges in the middle of a windy night. Many of those involved were not even in their twenties. These green, untested soldiers faced the Germans’ 88-millimetre guns. Many argue that, had the Allied soldiers been war weary, they might not have charged up those beaches from their landing craft so freely. Erwin Rommel was in charge of the German defenses but suffered from Hitler’s lack of trust in his commanders in the field. The result was that Rommel had little control over German forces. The Luftwaffe and navy had different commands, as did the Waffen-SS units. Crucially, the vital Panzer divisions — the only units likely to repel the Allied forces — remained under Hitler’s sole command, hundreds of miles away. In contrast, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had total control over the Allied effort. This slays the myth that authoritarian regimes are better suited to fighting wars. Amphibious landings are a nightmare. This was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with 132,715 troops landing from the English Channel. The Allies had carried out successful landings before, but never against a fortified area. Some 6,000 ships, 8,000 aircraft and eight divisions had to cross 60 to 100 miles of open sea in the largest invasionin history. When the attack was being planned, it was not clear that the Normandy beaches could even take the weight of tanks. Winston Churchill was nervous, with the disaster of Gallipoli in the First World War always on his mind. Another more recent debacle was the attempted Dieppe landing of 1942. D-Day nearly did not happen at all that June. Poor weather delayed the attempt by one day, and it was a close call whether or not to go ahead on June 6. The correct tides meant that, if it was not June, it would have had to be September instead. The Germans thought the weather was too poor to allow for an invasion from June 5 to 7. Allied planners insisted on total secrecy because, if the Germans got wind of the location of the assault, D-Day may have had a different result. Operation Fortitude, which deployed fake tanks in Kent, was carried out to convince the Germans that the main assault would be at Pas-de-Calais, logically the easiest place. All sorts of ingenious tricks were played, including the dropping of strips of metal foil known as “window” miles away from Normandy to con German radar into believing this was the signature of an invading fleet. They also dropped dummy parachutists that exploded on landing. This was a multinational effort. The invasion force consisted of forces from 13 countries, all operating with a shared sense of purpose. It also cooperated with the French Resistance on the ground. This should not be forgotten but all too frequently is. The invasion force consisted of forces from 13 countries, all operating with a shared sense of purpose. Chris Doyle No surprises, then, that various leaders made this point whilst in earshot of US President Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron of France was clear: “Dear Donald Trump, the United States is never greater than when it is fighting for the freedom of others. The United States of America is never greater than when it shows its loyalty. Loyalty to the universal values that the founding fathers defended when, nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago, France came to support its independence.” Angela Merkel’s presence was also powerful. She said: “That I, as German chancellor, can be here today, that today we stand together for peace and freedom, is a gift from history that must be cared for and protected.” All of this and much more bears repeating. As so many were respectfully commemorating the sacrifice and bravery of those in Normandy, mindless vandals were desecrating D-Day war graves in West Yorkshire. Not everyone cares about or understands the sacrifices made for our freedom. Next year will be the 75th anniversary of the end of the war. But, as poignant as that will be, something about D-Day — its story, scale, planning, audacity and the courage of those involved — touches us very deeply.