Abbott’s D-day with heroes and royals

Six Aust WWII veterans have been awarded France's highest honour at 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations.

TONY Abbott joined seven Australian veterans who fought in the D-day landings to pay respects to their former comrades who fell in battle 70 years ago.

The Prime Minister walked with 92 year old Stuart "Snow" Davis through the Bayeux Cemetery, pausing at two graves of the 14 Australians buried there.

They laid small plywood crosses made by schoolchildren at the Australian War Memorial at the graves of Flight Sergeant Malcolm Robert Burgess and Pilot Officer Roland Gilbert Ward.

Robert Ward, from Queensland, and Malcolm Burgess, from Sydney, both died in the Omaha Beach landing in the Allied invasion of Normandy.

The 70th anniversary of the largest seaborne invasion in history is likely to be last that many veterans can attend.

Paying respects ... Prime Minister Tony Abbott places a cross at the grave site of Flight sergeant M.R. Burgess while attending the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Bayeux, Normandy. Picture: Jake Nowakowski Source: News Corp Australia

Six of the Australian veterans were awarded the French Legion of Honour during their visit to France to take part in the historic commemorations.

Bayeux is the largest British cemetery of the Second World War, with over 4,500 soldiers buried there.

Mr Abbott led the Australian veterans through the cemetery after attending the Royal British Legion and British Defence Ministry Service at the Bayeux Cathedral.

On foot ... Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrives at Bayeaux, Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-day. Picture: Jake Nowakowski Source: News Corp Australia

The seven Australians were among about 3000 veterans who took part in the commemorations in Normandy that included reactions of landings and parachute drops.

In a day of formal commemorations, Mr Abbott joined leaders including UK prime minister David Cameron and the Queen in Commonwealth ceremonies.

He was later due to attend a lunch with 17 other leaders at the 18th century Chateau de Benouville.

Honouring the fallen ... Prime Minister Tony Abbott pays his respects at the graves of two Australian RAAF personnel during his visit to the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Bayeux, Normandy. Pic: Jake Nowakowski Source: News Corp Australia

The lunch was set to be a tense affair, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko to sit around the same table for the first time since Moscow annexed Crimea.

All leaders were due to attend an international ceremony at one of the landing sites at Sword Beach.

D-day heroes ... Australian veterans arrive Bayeaux for The 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Photo: Jake Nowakowski Source: News Corp Australia

Leaders from countries that were once opposing sides of the war took part in the solemn day's events, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel joining others including US President Barack and French President Francois Hollande to mark the sacrifice of soldiers on D-day.

Mixing with the royals ... Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Prime minister Manuel Valls walk in Bayeux, Normandy. Source: AFP

Mr Abbott said the battle that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany should be remembered as one that changed the course of history for the better.

"D-day was a day that changed the world," Mr Abbott said.

Meeting HRH ... Prime Minister Tony Abbott meeting the Queen at the Queen's Birthday Tea Party in Paris. Picture: Josh Wilson Source: News Corp Australia

"It was the beginning of the liberation of Europe and it helped to set up a post war world which for all of its difficulties and problems has been unprecedented in terms of the prosperity of humanity and the freedom of humanity."

"It is very important that we honour the people who did so much to make this possible."

Up to 2,500 Australians participated in the D-day landings, mainly flying missions in Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force Squadrons.

Eighteen Australians died in the battle, including the airmen killed during the night, according to the Australian War Memorial.

Mr Abbott will also visit Australian war memorials from World War I at Pozieres and Villers-Bretonneux.

After arriving in Paris, the Prime Minister attended a garden party with the Queen at the British embassy to celebrate the monarch's birthday.

Describing the Queen as "a remarkable woman", Mr Abbott said she provided "a sign of the continuity and stability in our national life and a sign of the continuity and the stability that the United Kingdom has brought to the wider world."

Barack Obama has paid tribute to the men who breached 'Hitler's Wall' to liberate Europe on D-Day.

OBAMA AND HOLLANDE HONOUR TROOPS ON D-DAY

President Barack Obama said "the tide was turned in that common struggle for freedom" on D-Day and now lives on in a new generation.

"America's claim - our commitment to liberty, to equality, to freedom, to the inherent dignity of every human being - that claim is written in blood on these beaches, and it will endure for eternity," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery on a morning that dawned glorious and bright over the sacred site he called "democracy's beachhead."

Obama spoke from the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where nearly 10,000 white marble tombstones sit on a bluff overlooking the site of the June 6, 1944, battle's most violent fighting at Omaha Beach. He described D-Day's violent scene in vivid terms, recalling that "by daybreak, blood soaked the water" and "thousands of rounds bit into flesh and sand."

Honouring troops ... US President Barack Obama speaks with a US veteran during a joint French-US D-Day commemoration ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-mer, Normandy. Picture: Damian Meyer Source: AFP

"We come to remember why America and our allies gave so much for the survival of liberty at its moment of maximum peril," Obama said. "And we come to tell the story of the men and women who did it, so that it remains seared into the memory of the future world."

Obama's speech at the morning ceremony came after he met privately with some of the dwindling number of surviving troops who fought Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, along with those who have served since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He told the D-Day veterans, "Your legacy is in good hands."

The president mentioned that his grandfather served in Patton's Army and his grandmother was among the many women who went to work supporting the war effort back home, in her case on a B-29 bomber assembly line.

Coming together ... US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande stand during a joint French-US D-Day commemoration ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Picture: Damian Meyer Source: AFP

Obama also singled out from the audience Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, an Army Ranger who served 10 deployments and was severely wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Obama recognized Remsburg at the emotional high-point of his State of the Union address earlier this year, after first meeting him five years ago at the Normandy commemoration. The two reunited Friday as Obama met with veterans at Omaha Beach before his speech.

"For in a time when it has never been more tempting to pursue narrow self-interest and slough off common endeavor, this generation of Americans, our men and women of war, have chosen to do their part as well," Obama said.

never forgotten ... US President Barack Obama stands with US veterans during a joint French-US D-Day commemoration ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Picture: Damian Meyer Source: AFP

"And someday, future generations, whether seventy or seven hundred years hence, will gather at places like this to honor them - and to say that these were generations of men and women who proved once again that the United States of America is and will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known," Obama said.

France will never forget what it owes the United States for the role American forces played in liberating the country from the Nazis, President Francois Hollande said.

"We celebrated today a memorable date in our history where our two peoples came together in the same fight for liberty," Hollande said in a speech at the American cemetery at Omaha Beach on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings

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