The 2024 D-day commemorations sent a message of European unity but missed the opportunity to acknowledge Ukraine’s contribution to the defeat of Nazism.
D-Day has drawn the attention of numerous filmmakers over the years. Here are ten of the best D-Day films, each showing the invasion’s prominent place in international memory.
Members of E Company of the 16th Infantry Regiment approach the Normandy beaches in the first wave of the D-Day invasion.
National Park Service
In the first wave to hit the beach, troops were met by withering German gunfire. But they kept pushing and established a small beachhead from which the invasion could continue.
U.S. Army Rangers prepare to depart England for the D-Day invasion.
Photo12/UIG/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said D-Day ‘was not a game changer’ in World War II – and Soviet media delivered that message starting the day after the invasion.
An aerial view of the floating pier off Gaza shows its basic structure.
U.S. Central Command via AP
A pre-World War II US Navy plan for a modular floating platform has developed into a key lifeline in Gaza and at disaster sites around the world.
One of war photographer Robert Capa’s images shows a wave of troops arriving on the Normandy beaches on D-Day.
Robert Capa via National Museum of American History
The film pays homage to the war generation, revels in forties nostalgia and stakes an assertive British claim to the memory of the Allied invasion.
Troops of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade head to shore in Bernières-sur-Mer, Normandy, France on June 6, 1944.
Gilbert Alexander Milne, Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada, PA-122765
You might think it morbid, but people have many reasons for visiting the sites of battles and disasters.
To stage their invasion of Nazi-held France, Allied forces created floating harbors in the English Channel where ships could safely dock to send soldiers and supplies ashore.
Royal Air Force
During World War II the US military forged partnerships with industry and academia that translated laboratory findings into working products at an unprecedented pace.
The culmination of a lot of planning, and a lot of building.
DVIDSHUB
On June 6 1944, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy. Their number rose to 1.5m over the next six weeks. With them came millions of tons of equipment, ranging from munitions, vehicles, food…
Protect and defend: President Obama takes the pledge at West Point’s graduation ceremony.
EPA/Peter Foley
As President Obama looks across the beaches of Normandy for the ceremony commemorating the D-Day landings, he could be forgiven for feeling ambivalent. Certainly, these are sites of great tragedy and a…