(4 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
At Sea, English Channel – 4 June 2024
1. Various of D-Day veterans on ferry for flower wreath
2. Close of flower wreath
3. Flower wreath handed to veterans
4. D-Day veterans Harry Birdsall and Alec Penstone (front) throwing a wreath into the sea
5. Participants saluting as bagpipes are played
6. Close of bagpipe being played
7. Close of veterans
8. Participants saluting
9. Close of veteran saluting
10. Pan of water
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Don Jones, British D-Day veteran:
"I’m sorry. These things sometimes come to your mind. Not only that, how it could’ve been. But I don’t like to think about some of the other things I saw."
12. Close of wreath
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Don Jones, British D-Day veteran:
"I did my best on D-Day. Like other people did. I’m sorry. But I’m not famous, I don’t want to be, but you know I love what Don and brother did."
14. Various of veterans during wreath ceremony
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Bernard Morgan, RAF veteran:
"Very honoured to be selected and I’d like to thank the Royal British Region for bringing me here. It’s more pleasant to coming here today that it was 80 years ago."
16. Wide of veterans
17. Bagpiper Tosh McDonald shaking hands with veterans
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Tosh McDonald, bagpiper:
"I’ve been doing it since 2011. Why I wanted to do the 80th was because I really think this will be the last big one with my veteran friends. I’ve lost a few this year. I’ve done a few funerals this year for my my big veteran friends, and it’s been a very emotional coming back to here."
19. McDonald playing bagpipe
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Tosh McDonald, bagpiper:
"I’ll certainly be crying during the game, during the… That’s what I’ll be thinking when I’m there – my big friends that I have lost."
21. Various of ceremony being held
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Mandy Reynolds, chaplain of the Spirit of Normandy Trust:
"Because they’re remembering their mate who came off the landing craft but never actually made it onto the beaches. So while we go out and about and we go to the cemeteries and we lay all crosses and all wreaths, for many there is no grave apart from the sea. So it’s important that we remember those who made their final resting place, the sea."
23. Close of French flag
24. Wide of veterans
STORYLINE:
Veterans travelled by ferry from southern England across the English Channel to mark D-Day.
About 20 British veterans gathered on the deck of the Mont St. Michel ferry bound for northern France, as crowds gathered on the deck and along the shoreline to wave and cheer them on their voyage to D-Day commemorations.
23,000 Allied airborne troops had flown over the Channel to drop on D-Day into Normandy.
More than 132,000 others crossed the Channel aboard thousands of ships that stretched as far as eyes could see, landing on Utah and Omaha and three other code-named beaches: Gold, Juno and Sword.
D-Day veterans Harry Birdsall and Alec Penstone threw the wreath into the water to mark the occassion.
"I did my best on D-Day," Don Jones, British D-Day veteran told The Associated Press.
A pipe band struck up a stirring rendition of “Brave Scotland,’’ as the ferry pulled out of port.
The veterans, sitting in wheelchairs or leaning on canes, waved at their fans on the shoreline.
Sailors stood at attention on the HMS Prince of Wales in tribute.
On docks and on sandy shores, dozens of people turned out to wave the Union flag to see them off.
The veterans leaned over the rail, almost to see if they could pick out anyone on the shore.
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