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Left Out of D-Day Events, Queen Elizabeth Is Fuming
New York Times ^ | May 27, 2009

Posted on 05/28/2009 9:12:50 AM PDT by reaganaut1

Queen Elizabeth is not amused.

Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.

The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.

While serving, she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and developed a fondness for him, according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned in June 1953, to say in later years that he was the American president with whom she felt most at ease.

But on June 6, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Sarkozy attend commemorations at the iconic locations associated with the American D-Day assault — Utah Beach, the town of Ste.-Mère-Église, where the first United States paratroopers landed, and the American war cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer — the highest-ranking British representative will be Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His main role will be at ceremonies at the town of Arromanches, near the beaches where British troops landed.

How the queen came to be excluded has become entangled in a thicket of diplomatic missteps, or misunderstandings, depending on whether the account is given in London or Paris.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: anniversary; dday; queenelizabeth; royals; sarkozy; wwii
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To: ChicagahAl

I apologize, I was just being bitterly sarcastic.


101 posted on 05/28/2009 11:23:07 AM PDT by freedomson (Tagline comment removed by moderator)
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To: Revelation 911

I apologize, I was just being bitterly sarcastic.


102 posted on 05/28/2009 11:23:38 AM PDT by freedomson (Tagline comment removed by moderator)
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To: rhombus

I apologize, I was just being bitterly sarcastic.


103 posted on 05/28/2009 11:24:15 AM PDT by freedomson (Tagline comment removed by moderator)
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To: ansel12

Look, E’s parents stayed in London during the bombings to calm the people...and they did...the thought that O and Sarkozy didn’t invite her when sooooooo many of her citizens died, well, that shows STUPIDITY AND LOW CLASS!


104 posted on 05/28/2009 11:24:45 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: reaganaut1

President Squarepants at work again.

Did his teleprompter blow over?


105 posted on 05/28/2009 11:32:01 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Ann Archy
Look, E’s parents stayed in London during the bombings to calm the people...and they did...the thought that O and Sarkozy didn’t invite her when sooooooo many of her citizens died,

I have to go with my American view of Monarchists on this, my dead American ancestors would require it even though the British "royalty" were so "heroic" that they lived in Britain during the war. By the way France lost far more people than Great Britain or the United States did in WWII.

106 posted on 05/28/2009 11:34:08 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
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To: reaganaut1

They were wrong to do this, but I have no real admiration for QEII. She knighted Elton John. Enough said.


107 posted on 05/28/2009 11:35:51 AM PDT by Antoninus (Queer is boring.)
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To: reaganaut1

Hey, cmon - he gave some nice CD’s and returned the bust of that old dead white guy who had something with winning the war. He is Kenyan trash and will always be so.


108 posted on 05/28/2009 11:36:18 AM PDT by MarkT
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To: ansel12

Sorry, I lived in London and I still love the Queen.


109 posted on 05/28/2009 11:37:21 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: DesertRhino
Given that her private views on any of the matters you describe are and always have been unknown, and are attributed to her only by speculation, it's difficult to know whence derives your certainty.

she approves of Socialism, power inherited by bloodline, and a society choked by class structure.

Not easy to see how somebody could 'approve' of all three of those things simultaneously without standing on her head - and she's getting a bit old for that.

110 posted on 05/28/2009 11:48:22 AM PDT by Winniesboy
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Don’t know exactly.. but those who did were the cream of the French crop. de Gaulle was leading from the back I understand..until the Americans let him take Paris and his 1st Armoured Division parade down the Paris main drag with him marching at their head like a 7ft tosser.

If ever a man was a drag on the Allied war effort it was de Gaulle!! As was proved later he had no love for the USA or the UK.


111 posted on 05/28/2009 11:49:11 AM PDT by Brit (yOU REALLY THINK T)
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To: Ann Archy
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
112 posted on 05/28/2009 11:50:48 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
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To: Ann Archy

:) Yup.


113 posted on 05/28/2009 12:05:25 PM PDT by Paperdoll (Had enough yet?)
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To: Winniesboy
Most Americans couldn't understand how Britain suffered from the ravages of the war or how many sons she lost or what may have motivated her political leadership to devise national health, government subsidized jobs, etc as a result of the war. Food and fuel were rationed through 1953 in the British Isles.
114 posted on 05/28/2009 12:13:38 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

Thank you for that information.


115 posted on 05/28/2009 12:14:56 PM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr (Please God Save The United States From The Democrats, and Barack Hussein Obama. Amen.)
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To: freedomson

no apology needed - I knew what you were saying - some other person might not though - Im guilty of forgetting tags as well


116 posted on 05/28/2009 12:15:48 PM PDT by Revelation 911 (How many 100's of 1000's of our servicemen died so we would never bow to a king?" -freeper pnh102)
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To: ansel12

My ancestors fought with George Washington in Valley Forge, too, but I still find O a source of embarrassment, if not outright fear, and I object to his ill mannered condoning of Queen Elizabeth’s absence in this commemorative conflab. She certainly has every right to be there.


117 posted on 05/28/2009 12:18:38 PM PDT by Paperdoll (Had enough yet?)
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To: reaganaut1

OBummer blows it again. What a buffoon.


118 posted on 05/28/2009 12:51:19 PM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: dfwgator

Shameful.


119 posted on 05/28/2009 1:09:11 PM PDT by the scotsman
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

French troops fought bravely on D-Day.

French Commandos stormed ashore at Ouistreham and battered the Germans there(immortalised in The Longest Day). French Naval ships also supported the landings.


120 posted on 05/28/2009 1:10:47 PM PDT by the scotsman
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