On sad anniversary, few to mourn the D-Day dead in Normandy

At least the dead will always be there.

All too many have already been, for 76 years since that fateful June 6 on France's Normandy beaches, when allied troops in 1944 turned the span of World War II and went on to defeat fascism in Europe in one of the most impressive feats in military history.

Forgotten they'll never be. Revered, yes. But Saturday's anniversary will be among the loneliest remembrances ever, as the coronavirus pandemic is keeping everyone away - from government leaders to frail veterans who may not get another opportunity for a final farewell to their unlucky comrades.

Rain and wind are also forecast, after weeks of warm, sunny weather.

“The sadness is nearly too much, since there is no-one," said local guide Adeline James. “Plus you have their stories. The annals is sad and it’s a lot more overwhelming now between your weather, the (virus) situation and, and, and.”

The locals in this northwestern part of France have come out year after year showing their gratitude for the soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries who liberated them from Adolf Hitler's Nazi forces.

Despite the lack of international crowds, David Pottier still went to improve American flags in the Calvados village of Mosles, population 356, which was liberated by allied troops your day after the landing on five Normandy beachheads.

In a forlorn scene, a gardener tended to the parched grass around the tiny monument for the war dead, while Pottier, the neighborhood mayor, was getting the French tricolor to flutter next to the Stars and Stripes.

“We must recognize that they came to die in a foreign land," Pottier said. “We miss the GIs," he said of the U.S. soldiers.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc across the world, infecting 6.6 million people, killing over 391,000 and devastating economies. It poses a specific threat to older people - just like the surviving D-Day veterans who are within their late nineties or older.

It has also influenced the younger generations who turn out annually to mark the occasion. Most have been barred from traveling to the windswept coasts of Normandy.

Some 160,000 soldiers made the perilous crossing from England that day in atrocious conditions, storming dunes which they knew were heavily defended by German troops determined to hold their positions.

Somehow, they succeeded. Yet they left a trail of a large number of casualties who've been mourned for generations since.

This past year stood out, with U.S. President Donald Trump joining his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. A smattering of veterans were honored with the highest accolades. All over the beaches of Normandy thousands came from around the world to pay their respects to the dead and laud the surviving soldiers.

The acrid smell of wartime-era jeep exhaust fumes and the rumble of old tanks filled the air as parades of vintages vehicles went from village to village. The tiny roads between your dunes, hedges and apple orchards were clogged all night, if not days.

Heading in to the D-Day remembrance weekend this season, only the salty brine coming off the ocean on Omaha Beach hits the nostrils, the shrieks of seagulls pierce the ears and a feeling of desolation hangs over the region's country roads.

“This past year this place was full with jeeps, trucks, persons decked out as soldiers," said Eric Angely, who sat on a seawall, dressed up in a global War II uniform after taking his restored U.S. Army jeep out for a ride.

“This season, there is nothing. It’s just me now, my dog and my jeep,” the local Frenchman said.

Three quarters of a century and the horrific wartime slaughter of D-Day help put things in perspective. Someday the COVID-19 pandemic, too, will pass, and persons will result in remember both events that shook the world.

“We don't have a brief memory around here," Pottier said with a wistful smile.