The leaders of France, Canada and the United States descended on Normandy on June 6 in a much more peaceful way than the 150,000 Allied soldiers did on that date in 1944. They commemorated the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Hitler’s Europe. Eight hundred British veterans of Normandy joined the dignitaries, along with former servicemen from Canada and the United States, a squall of reporters and countless tourists from across the planet.
You would think that someone would have reserved a chair for Britain’s head of state, the 83-year-old matriarch of the indefatigable institution at the heart of Britain’s wartime resilience, herself a survivor and veteran of World War ii.
