As we remember the sacrifice on the beaches of Normandy, I am reminded by the inscription on the Bayeux Memorial adjacent to the war graves cemetery, which in Latin reads: “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.” Besides recognising what was achieved by those now lying in a part of France that is for ever British, it emphasises how we are inextricably linked.
There is no God-given right to peace, and in the last 200 years we fought the French with the Prussians, we fought the Russians with the Turks and French, we fought the Germans with the French and Italians, and the Germans and Italians with the French and Russians. Many other nationalities also played their part, along with Commonwealth and American combatants.
At this time of reflection we should also remember the institutions that arose at the end of the second world war to promote peace and cooperation, not least of which is the union of sovereign states in the EU. Ironically we are hosting a US president who actively works against these institutions (Call for veterans to lead memorial instead of president, 5 June), something we all should be alarmed about.
Stephen Hawkins
Edinburgh
• I was thinking about my father, captured at Tobruk, imprisoned in Benghazi and then in a German stalag for three years. He returned weighing under six stone and, like many, never spoke of what he had seen. I chose to read an account of the experience of being a PoW in Benghazi on the War Memories website. Then I thought of the members of our government currently parading their credentials to the country. With a mixture of rage and sorrow, I can only despair at the calibre of these inheritors of the peace that was won on the bitter experience and the bodies of my father’s generation. Pity those few old men who are witnessing what we have come to.
Alison Pierce
Buxted, East Sussex
• It is disappointing, particularly on this year’s 75th anniversary, that the BBC has again omitted from its schedules its own brilliant 1993 film A Foreign Field, part comedy, part serious drama, about UK and US veterans returning to Normandy, starring Alec Guinness (superbly playing a brain-damaged survivor), Leo McKern, Jeanne Moreau, Lauren Bacall and Geraldine Chaplin, with its poignant, thought-provoking and totally unexpected sting in the tail. It should be broadcast on 6 June every year.
John Birkett
St Andrews, Fife
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