From the S&S archives:
Ships and troops assemble once again

UTAH BEACH, France — Forty years ago hundreds of ships lay waiting amid 12-foot waves in the English Channel, with thousands of troops poised for the initial assaults on the beaches of Normandy.

On Wednesday, the ships again sat silently offshore, and the troops were again anxiously awaiting action, although the channel was nearly glass smooth and the soldiers wore dress greens and carried empty weapons.

The men who assaulted these beaches on D-Day 40 years ago stood in small clusters several hundred yards down the beach, swapping war stories and comparing the Purple Hearts and Silver Stars pinned to uniform parts, VFW shirts and baseball caps; invited guests were relegated to sideline positions while their sons and grandsons occupied center stage.

Instead of German artillery batteries and machine-gun nests, Wednesday's invaders came because the heads of state of France, Belgium, Canada, the United States, Britain, Norway and the Netherlands came. But many things haven't changed.

French children in Bernieres sur Mer still waved Union Jacks, the Maple Leaf and the Stars and Stripes as truckloads of men in the uniforms of Allied nations sped past. Explosives teams still swept the beaches at Utah and Omaha, finding 6-inch naval shells and land mines buried in the sands.

Commandos from the British 47th Royal Marines were scattered along the coast, older and grayer and in restaurants and bars instead of foxholes. A Canadian nurse looked toward the incoming tide, recalling two wounded 14-year-old Germans crying for their mothers in a POW ward.

A Norwegian, driving a 2½-ton truck, stopped along the street to kiss the French girl who owned the campground where he and other military vehicle collectors were parking their tanks, staff cars and jeeps.

At a gas station near Arromanches, an attendant with a dirty beret and a three-day growth of beard told of hearing the radio messages confirming the invasion for Resistance fighters, while his daughter, who had heard the story many times before, waited on other customers.

Narrow country roads held traffic motionless, but it was tour buses and station wagons that clogged the streets where armored personnel carriers and amphibious assault vehicles once rumbled.

The U.S. 2nd Inf Div was in position on the coast road through Saint Laurent sur Mer, scanning the horizon for town officials instead of looking for German defenders. The officials were coming to name the street after the unit.

And H-Hour was midafternoon to accommodate the news media, not dawn to surprise the enemy.