Thursday 06 June 2019 10:37 am

Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron commemorate 75th D-Day anniversary

(L-R) French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, Britain’s Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II attend an event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, in Portsmouth, southern England, on June 5, 2019. – US President Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth II and 300 veterans are to gather on the south coast of England on Wednesday for a poignant ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Other world leaders will join them in Portsmouth for Britain’s national event to commemorate the Allied invasion of the Normandy beaches in France — one of the turning points of World War II. (Photo by Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

Political leaders including Theresa May and French president Emmanuel Macron today paid tribute to the veterans of the D-Day landings on the 75th anniversary of the event.

May and Macron gathered in Normandy with hundreds of veterans to thank them for their service. The French president told the crowd that “we owe them our freedom”.

US president Donald Trump will later go to an event at a US war cemetery at Omaha Beach with Macron.

D-Day is the name given to the operation that involved the landing of tens of thousands of troops from the UK, the US, Canada and France on 6 June, 1944. The troops attacked German forces on the Normandy beaches in what was the largest military, naval air and land operation in history.

It is marked in history as the start of the end of the second world war between the Western allies and Nazi Germany.

Speaking at one of her last engagements as Prime Minister, May – who will resign tomorrow – told the ceremony that the veterans belonged to a “very special generation”.

“A generation whose unconquerable spirit shaped the post-war world. They didn’t boast. They didn’t fuss. They served,” she said.

“And they laid down their lives so that we might have a better life and build a better world.

“If one day can be said to have determined the fate of generations to come in France, in Britain, in Europe and the world, that day was June 6, 1944.”

Her comments were echoed by Macron, who said: “This is where young men, many of whom had never set foot on French soil, landed at dawn under German fire, risking their lives while fighting their way up the beach, which was littered with obstacles and mines.”

In a nod to May’s last days as Prime Minister, Macron said: “Leaders may come and go but their achievements remain. The force of our friendship will outlast current events,” he said.

Yesterday the Queen paid tribute to those who died in the D-Day landings at an event in Portsmouth, while accompanied by Trump and 15 other world leaders.