Back in late May of 2019 we took the Queen Mary to the UK. Aboard were about 20 men who had served in the Armed Forces at the time of the D-Day invasion. They were heading back to Normandy to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Invasion. Each day there was a presentation by several of them about their experiences. One had been captured by the Germans when he and his squad were caught on the wrong side of a bridge, before their fellow soldiers could rescue them. He spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. Others remember the landing and having fellow soldiers killed just a few feet away from where they were in the landing boats. They were all in the '90's and Cunard paid for their trip across for telling their stories. We got a chance to eat lunch with several of them during the voyage, since they were otherwise just passengers.
There is an organization that sponsored them, which keeps the surviving soldiers and sailors of WWII together with regular reunions. I don't remember its name, but one of its leaders was there to moderate the panel and show photos of the soldiers and the landing.
Back in 1990, we went to Normandy, taking a group of college students there while we were teaching them in London for a semester. One of my colleagues had served in the army and was stationed in Europe just after the war had ended (he was 18 in 1946). He had visited Normandy back then and guided us around, including to the great cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. A very sobering view.
Larry
