Normandy marks D-Day's 79th anniversary, honors WWII veterans

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00:00 Let's cross now to Luke Brown who's at the American Cemetery in Arromanches in Normandy.

00:04 Luke, just take us through what's going to be happening at today's ceremony.

00:09 Yeah, the ceremony is just getting underway here at the American military cemetery here

00:16 in Normandy at Colville-sur-Mer.

00:18 We've just had the flight past from the military jets from the French Air Force but also from

00:23 heritage aircraft from the 1940s flying overhead.

00:26 We've also just heard the French and American national anthems being performed by the military

00:30 bands.

00:31 Clearly, this cemetery is very symbolic.

00:35 Just a few hundred metres from Omaha Beach and that was the scene of some of the bloodiest

00:39 fighting on D-Day 1944.

00:41 9,000, over 9,000 war graves here mark the final resting place of the US military servicemen

00:49 who fell in that day and in the following days in the Normandy campaign.

00:54 It's very moving to speak to some of the people who have made the journey.

00:57 There are a number of veterans that have made the journey.

00:59 An American commercial airliner bringing over 40 veterans from across the United States

01:05 to take part.

01:06 Some of them for the first time, they've returned to French soil in the intervening 79 years.

01:12 Also speaking to many of the hundreds of well-wishers that you can perhaps see behind me that have

01:16 come.

01:17 They're both French and American.

01:18 From the French people that I spoke to indicating they're here because it's important for them

01:22 to see the final resting places of the people who died for their liberty but also to transmit

01:29 to the following generations the children that they've brought with them, the sacrifice

01:32 made by many.

01:33 I also spoke to a couple of American tourists for their first journey to Europe.

01:40 Some 69-year-olds, for example, said it's very sobering to see the sacrifice that was

01:46 made by many of their fellow countrymen and to visit the beaches, to see the scenes of

01:51 the battle, to see where it happened.

01:53 Of course, all that increasingly relevant with the threat of military conflict once

01:58 again raising its head on the European continent.

02:02 So clearly a very symbolic moment here in Normandy.

02:05 Thank you.

02:06 Luke Brown reporting there from Aramanche, the American cemetery there in Normandy.

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