Leaders gather in Normandy to remember world's biggest invasion

It was a day that ''changed the world'', Tony Abbott declared on the eve of 70th anniversary commemorations of the June 6, 1944, landings at Normandy.

As many as 19 world leaders gathered in the coastal area on France's northern seaboard to mark the time and location of the mass invasion by Allied forces - the largest-ever single military manoeuvre - that ultimately led to the retaking of German-occupied France and to the successful end to the bloodiest conflict humankind had known.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrived with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha at the Bayeux Cathedral ...
Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrived with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha at the Bayeux Cathedral for a D-Day service in France. 

''D-Day was a day that changed the world. It was the beginning of the liberation of Europe and it helped to set up a postwar world which, for all its difficulties and problems, has been unprecedented in terms of the prosperity of humanity, and the freedom of humanity,'' Mr Abbott said.

''So it is very important that we honour the people who did so much to make this possible.''

About 3000 Australians took part in the campaign, mostly as airmen. Some 1100 Australians died in the June landings, with 14 killed on June 6 itself.

Between D-day and the end of August, 1978 Australians lost their lives.


Among the leaders attending the ceremonies were old friends and old enemies. An increasingly hostile atmosphere between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama threatened to overshadow the anniversary.

In a day of sombre ceremonies, Mr Abbott was accompanied by seven Australian veterans of the invasion that took place along miles of landing beaches given names such as Utah, Omaha, Juno and Sword Beach.

World leaders and veterans experienced more favourable weather than the 160,000 troops who began landing before dawn 70 years ago, when many were blown off-course.

Casualties were heavy especially among the dominant US troops, who faced stiff resistance from German positions.

Mr Abbott attended a church service at the Bayeux Cathedral, another at the Bayeux cemetery put on by the British and a third service provided by a grateful France at Sword Beach.

Flanked by one of the surviving airmen, Stuart ''Snow'' Davis, and by the incoming Chief of the Defence Force Mark Binskin, Mr Abbott stopped to pay his respects at the war graves of two of the 17 Australians resting at the Bayeux cemetery.

Overall some 5000 landing craft were involved in the crossings of the English Channel in an operation that had been months in the planning and which relied crucially on total surprise for success.

Part of that was deception via a dummy operation designed to fool the Germans. In a sign of the progress of Europe since, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is among the leaders marking the landings and German flags flutter alongside those of the Allied powers at Sword Beach, a reminder that Germany lost some 1000 men on D-Day.

Fifteen thousand French civilians died in the D-day operation despite Winston Churchill's hope to keep collateral casualties to below 10,000. Another 20,000 had died within three months.