Meanwhile, on the British side of the English Channel, then 17-year-old Mary Scott was working at the communications center in Portsmouth, listening to the coded messages coming from the front line and passing them on as part of operations in Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold beaches.
"The war was in my ears," she recalled, describing the radio machine she operated with levers.
"When they (communications officers) had to respond to my messages and they lifted their lever, you heard all the sounds of the men on the beaches: bombs, machine guns, men shouting, screaming."
Scott who will soon turn 96, said she got very "emotional" when arriving in Normandy Saturday on a trip organized by the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans. She was in tears seeing the D-Day beaches.
"Suddenly I thought maybe some of those young men I spoke to... that they had died," she said.
The symbol is even stringer across the Channel. Queen Elizabeth II, who served in World War II as an army driver and mechanic is celebrating her 70 years on the throne.
"Women were involved," Scott stressed. "I mean, I'm enormously proud to have been a minute part of Operation Overlord.
Her face turned to sadness when she mentioned the war in the Ukraine.
"Why can't we learn from past experiences? Why can't we do that? What's wrong with us?" she asked. "War should teach us something but it never penetrates for very long."
GreGen
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