The Globe and Mail

Some men shook hands and embraced. Others told nervous jokes. A few collected stones and piles of sand. And some stood with the water at their feet and quietly wept.


'The last time I was here, there wasn't much time to look at the scenery,' said James Patrick, who was among the first to step into the rough waters off this stretch of beach in the dawn of June 6, 1944, with the Regina Rifles. 'There was too much metal coming in my direction.' He had not been back here since that day when he stepped from the landing craft into fear and agony, and said the smell of the sea brought back terrible memories.


'One trip out here is enough for a lifetime,' said Philip Cockburn, 82, of Forest, Ont. 'Us old soldiers tend not to talk about this kind of thing,' he said, struggling to maintain his composure as he paused in his wheelchair. 'It sort of gets you in the heart. ..... There are things you can't stand to think about.'


Others mustered a show of bravado.


'Last time I was here I left a leg down there — did any of you guys happen to see a leg? Tell me if you happen to see it,' joked Bob Ross as he steered away from the shore in his wheelchair. He was wounded and endured an agonizing wait on the beach that morning.


The veterans were accompanied by a line of young Frenchwomen, offering bottles of water to overcome the heat of the day.


This provoked one former infantrymen to turn and ask: 'Where were you when I was here 60 years ago?' That earned him a kiss on the lips.


As the soldiers were left to their memories on the beach, several thousand Canadian visitors looked across the long stretch of Norman beach where 2,500 American, British and Canadian young men were killed by Germans that day. It was the beginning of a terrible fight into Germany that would kill a quarter-million Allied soldiers by the war's end in May, 1945.


'You know, it has just struck me: When I look at all the Canadians seated in the stands today, I'm looking at pretty much the number of young men who we sent to land in Normandy 60 years ago,' said Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Côté. He was one of a tiny group of Canadians who knew about the invasion as early as January of 1944, when he helped plan it with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. 'That really brings it home: We sent a stadium full of Canadians to face the German guns.'"