Publishers join efforts to thank veterans on 80th anniversary of Normandy landings
Publishers are getting behind The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society’s efforts to help commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Cardology and Paper Salad are among the greeting card industry folk who are joining HLAS founder Dinah Johnson’s D-Day 80 Thank You Card Drop by sending cards through for her to pass on to some of the few surviving veterans of the World War II Allied invasion of Normandy which was part of Operation Overlord.
Having organised an impromptu 70th anniversary commemoration 10 years ago, Dinah met a number of veterans living near her in Swanage and, to mark 80 years since the largest seaborne invasion in history, decided to send thank you cards“to show them that what they and their friends went through for us on that fateful day is very much remembered and appreciated”.
Dinah added: “I thought it would be lovely if we could get at least 80 thank you cards for them for D-Day 80. It’s just to let them know how grateful we still are. I’d love to show them that we still care, and really it could be a mark of thanks to all the D-Day and WW2 veterans still with us, and especially to all those who died that day.”
The landings were codenamed Operation Neptune and began the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe from the Nazis – Allied casualties from the operation have been documented as 10,000 with 4,414 confirmed dead, with German casualties between 4,000 and 9,000
Dinah learned about the event during a holiday to Normandy in 1987 when she and her family visited the cemeteries at Arromanches, and explained: “The effect was quite profound but if you’ve ever been you’d understand why.”
When she found herself living in Swanage only a few miles from where they practiced the landings on Studland Beach, and with no local commemorative event arranged in 2014, Dinah and her friends decided to visit Fort Henry at Studland to mark the occasion with a small impromptu service, and used the local newspaper to invite people to join in, then followed up with a garden party the following year.
“I hadn’t expected actual D-Day veterans to attend,” Dinah said, “it was very humbling. This year on D-Day 80, sadly several of the wonderful veterans have died, but two lovely gentlemen, Peter Lovett and Cliff Brown, are still going strong.
“I’m very aware that getting about might be a bit more difficult these days – I’m sure they would say different – so I had another idea…the D-Day 80 Thank You Card Drop.”
Paper Salad’s co-owners Karen Wilson and Claire Williams have sent Dinah some of their boxes for the veterans to keep the cards in, and David Falkner, md at Cardology, has sent some of his very apt pop-up Spitfire designs.
“It’s another important reason for card sending, and something we may all potentially want to support,” David said.
Cards can be written to Peter or Cliff, or Dear D-Day Veteran to recognise all the survivors of the operation around the world, and should be sent to The D-Day 80 Thank You Card Drop, c/o The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society, PO Box 9347, Swanage, Dorset BH19 9BG.
