Day Six - Dateline: Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy
27 May

"Peace is not a gift from God to man, but a gift from man to himself".

The words of Elie Weisel carry special meaning on the beaches of Normandy, where the selflessness and bravery of the allied forces who liberated Europe continues to challenge and inspire.

Consider the actions of the US Rangers who, on the morning of 6 June 1944, scaled the ragged cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach with hooks and ladders borrowed from the London Fire Brigade, in an audacious attempt to take out the German's 155m guns, the most powerful weapons in their coastal arsenal.

After 48 hours of uninterrupted fighting, the Rangers mission was finally complete.

Against overwhelming odds, they had succeeded in silencing the German guns.

Or consider the heroism of the men of the 505th parachute infantry, whose aim was to capture the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise.

At first, their mission was a disaster, with the first wave of paratroopers dropped mistakenly directly onto the town.

First liberation

By unhappy chance, a farmhouse had been set on fire in the proceeding air bombardment by allied planes, lighting up the night sky, and making the Americans easy targets as they drifted slowly to the ground.

John Steel, a young paratroopers, had the nightmare of watching his comrades die.

For hours he was trapped high above the town, when his parachute was ensnared in the church steeple.

Luckily, a group of Americans landed in the fields nearby.

While the Germans slept, thinking the attack was over, the paratroopers regrouped, and eventually stormed the town. It become the first in France to be liberated by US forces.

Payback time

George W Bush visited Sainte-Mere-Eglise to commemorate Memorial Day, a national holiday in the United States, first instituted to remember the dead from the American Civil War.

The day was intricately choreographed by the White House to boost European support for the "war on terrorism".

Although the president never said so explicitly, the subtext of his public comments was clear: America had come to the defence of its Europeans allies not once, but twice during the 20th Century.

And now it was time to return the favour as the "war on terrorism" is expanded to Iraq, sometime next year.

The centrepiece of the day was a speech at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, where 9386 Americans were buried in lush green plots, studded with white Italian marble headstones.

In Reagan's footsteps

Former President Ronald Reagan came here on 6 June 1984, to mark the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings, delivering a poetic speech, which was arguably one of the finest of his eight years in office.

"From a terrible war we learned that unity made us invincible; now, in peace, that same unity makes us secure." said Mr Reagan.

"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared," he said.

Mr Bush may well share the same rigid convictions of his Republican predecessor, and certainly the same sense of moral certainty.

But as a public speaker, he falls well short.

Missed opportunity

Here, after six long days of a gruelling four-nation trip, Mr Bush was clearly exhausted, and his White House speech-writers had let him down badly.

Mr Reagan used set-piece speeches like this to give meaning to his presidency.

With George W Bush, there is a strong sense that he is simply going through the motions.

Whereas Mr Reagan's speeches were delicately woven, those delivered by George W Bush tend to be threadbare.

A more powerful speech here might have helped to rekindle European support for the war on terrorism, which has been flagging since the fall of the Taleban last year.

But the president let slip a golden opportunity, which he may well come to regret.