D-days…

D-day – hard to believe that it happened only 13 years before I was born and by the time I was in my teens it seemed to be almost forgotten. Perhaps we need reminders about these things. Perhaps today, seventy years on, is the time to remember.

The aerial photographs, taken by allied planes flying just 1,000ft above the battlefield, show the chaos of the landings. In some ways they look like pieces of abstract art, paintings of random objects splashed across a distressed canvas. They are so beautiful in many ways that it’d be easy to get lost in the patterns of the images and forget the destruction and sacrifice of the reality going on below.

I’ve sometimes wondered what the D stood for. Was it Destiny, Doom, Deliverance, Debarkation? Truth is, it was none of these things, just a term to show the importance of the date. Of course since then there have been many D-days, it’s still used to plan military operations. There were D-days in Korea, the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other conflicts. Just ask anyone who has served in the Navy, Army or the RAF, and they will have their personal D-day memories. Although few will be as etched into the consciousness as 6 June 1944, they will be the days that will stay with those who lived through them forever; the days they were lucky to survive, the days when death was riding on their shoulder.

But what about the rest of us, those who have never lived through a conflict close at home or been involved in some other war further afield? What about our D-days? We all have them don’t we? Days we are dreading. Days when our futures hang in the balance - the results of medical  tests, the long awaited announcement that tells you if your job is to go or stay, the birth of a long awaited child.

D-days happen all the time, every day for someone, somewhere.

Of course, one of the reasons we are here to live through our own particular D-days is directly down to the men in the chaotic abstract painting that was that very first D-day, the one that happened just 13 years before I was born.

Unfortunately, the Battle for Normandy didn’t end on the 6^th of June. The Germans counter-attacked and many more terrible battles were fought over the following 80 days. The cost of victory can still be seen today at the 27 war cemeteries which litter the Normandy coastline, they contain the remains of more than 110,000 dead from both sides - and, despite Google’s lack of interest, that is something worth remembering.