America’s National Churchill Museum will honor and remember all those who served on D-Day exactly 80 years ago this week. On Thursday, June 6, at 12:00 noon CDT, the Museum will solemnly toll the bells of the Museum’s St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, exactly 80 times for the brave individuals who risked their lives during the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.
The D-Day invasion, dubbed “Operation Overlord,” was planned by Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and conducted under the leadership of Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In addition to Churchill’s ties to Westminster, Eisenhower was posthumously inducted into the Museum’s Association of Churchill Fellows at the Museum’s dedication on May 7, 1969.
“It will be an honor for us to remember and reflect upon the service of so many on D-Day,” says Timothy Riley, the Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator at America’s National Churchill Museum. “The Allied invasion of Normandy was not fought to take land or treasure, but to liberate a democracy from the tyranny of Nazi occupation. The sacrifices were enormous, but outcome — liberty itself — was even greater. We will honor this not only on that significant day, but every day.”
“Leave the past to history especially as I propose to write that history myself.”
