Editorial: Remembering that immense moment in global history 80 years ago, D-Day

Morning View

In Europe today there is war in the east, in Ukraine and also in Israel.

It is one of the most worrying times for the continent since 1945.

And yet, we should give thanks for our current situation. It is nowhere near as perilous as it was in the 1940s, when the UK faced an existential threat at the hands of the Nazis.

Hitler came within a whisker of defeating us in the Battle of Britain, weeks after France had surrendered. Russia was then in pact with Germany and the United States was indulging the sort of America First idiocy in which Donald Trump believes today.

Within months of that life-and-death struggle over the English skies, the German bombers had reached Belfast – in the far west of the kingdom, and somewhere thought to be out of Nazi reach.

Hitler was defeated in part by his own madness, having come so close to victory, and with Britain having no prospect of stopping him alone he invaded Russia, and then went from one crazed scheme to another.

And yet, the deranged dictator would not have actually been removed from office without the operation that got under way 80 years ago today. A vast number of brave soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches.

Many thousands were killed within hours of the operation getting under way.

Today we report on the commemorations in England yesterday, now moving to France, where it all happened. Emma Little Pengelly is representing Northern Ireland at this hugely significant memorial day.

Our reports today, including in the eight-page supplement, include recollections from Ulstermen who took part in that momentous military action. Some of their blunt accounts bring home the horror of what young chaps, barely out of boyhood, encountered on D-Day.