Eighty-two years ago today, roughly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy, France, launching Operation Overlord to liberate German-occupied Western Europe — the single day that turned the course of World War II and one that still resonates deeply across Costa Rica’s foreign community.
For the North American, British and European retirees who make up a large share of life here, June 6 is more than a date in a history book. Many grew up with fathers, grandfathers and uncles who served, and a dwindling few remember the war firsthand.
In Normandy on Saturday, world leaders and a small group of surviving veterans gathered to honor the men who stormed the beaches in 1944. More than 4,400 Allied troops were killed on that single day, and more than half of them were Americans. As the largest seaborne military operation in history, D-Day launched with tens of thousands of troops landing simultaneously across five separate beaches in Normandy.
Ceremonies stretched along the landing beaches, from the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer to the international ceremony at Langrune-sur-Mer on Sword Beach. The remembrances carry added weight this year: each anniversary takes on greater symbolic significance as the number of veterans able to attend dwindles, and the 82nd could be one of the last times a substantial group of veterans participates. At the British Normandy Memorial, a line-up of veterans was wheeled to the front of the ceremony, and 100-year-old veteran Ken Hay stood to recite the remembrance poem before a minute of silence.
Costa Rica’s own ties to the war are easy to overlook today, given the country’s 1948 decision to abolish its army. Yet the nation was among the first in the hemisphere to take a side. Costa Rica joined the Allies on Dec. 8, 1941, declaring war on Japan the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and on Germany and Italy shortly afterward — the first country in the Americas to declare war on the Empire of Japan, in solidarity with the United States. It was not the first time the country had gone to war, having briefly declared war on Germany during World War I.
That stance carried consequences at home. At Washington’s urging, the Calderón Guardia administration seized property from Axis nationals and interned hundreds of German, Italian and Japanese residents at a forgotten camp built in San José.
For many readers who have traded northern winters for Costa Rica’s coasts, the anniversary is a moment of quiet reflection — a connection to a generation now nearly gone, marked thousands of miles from the beaches where it all began.
