Remembering D-Day, as a new war rages in Europe
World leaders and surviving soldiers will attend the 80th anniversary of Normandy
Bob Fagan was a 21-year-old private from Texas when he plunged from his assault craft into the cold sea off Utah Beach in Normandy, under the rattle of Nazi machinegun fire and air bombardment. “The water was red with blood,” he later recalled. “There were bodies floating all around us.” A fellow member of the 299th combat battalion landing on Omaha Beach had a simpler description: “Hell.”
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Beaches like no other”
From the June 1st 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Germany’s former chancellor sets out to restore her reputation
But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds
The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist
Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies
What to read to understand Elon Musk
The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction
Tech and religion are very much alike
They both have gods, rich institutions and secretive cultures
Woodrow Wilson’s reputation continues to decline
A dispassionate new biography chronicles the former president’s hostility to suffrage
The cult of Jordan Peterson
What the Canadian intellectual gets right about young men