Calvin Shiner, center, a 102-year-old who was drafted in 1943 into the then-racially segregated U.S. military to serve in an all-Black construction unit, and other veterans of World War II attend a commemoration on Monday, June 2, 2025 in Colleville-sur-Mer, at the Normandy American Cemetery that is the final resting place for nearly 9,400 American war dead and which overlooks Omaha beach, one of the D-D-day invasion zones on June 6, 1944. (AP Photo/John Leicester) The Associated Press

OMAHA BEACH, France -- Veterans were gathering Friday on the beaches of Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler's regime.

Tens of thousands of onlookers are expected to attend the commemoration

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