World War II

MEMORY AND HONOR

BORN IN THE WAR’S AFTERMATH, Jean-Marc Lefranc, president of France’s D-Day Commemoration Committee, has a lifelong connection to D-Day and World War II. The son of a French resistance fighter, Lefranc, 72, grew up in the town of Grandcamp-Maisy, a mere three miles from Pointe du Hoc. Early on D-Day, men of the U.S. Army’s 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions scaled the 100-foot cliff there to seize the German defensive position at the top. Says Lefranc: “My father instilled in me the sacrifice the Allied soldiers made.”

How will the 75th Anniversary compare to previous commemorations?

In one particularly important way: most of the survivors of World War II are in their nineties.

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