D-Day Anniversary 2019 Quotes: 75 Years Of Normandy Invasion At Omaha Beach

Thursday marks 75 years since D-Day, the pivotal World War II operation in which Allied troops invaded Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. This year, President Donald Trump paid his tribute to the brave Allied soldiers who "stood in the fires of hell" to help turn the tide of World War II, speaking at the edge of Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.

More than 160,000 soldiers stormed the French coast to take on the Nazi German fighters, making it the largest seaborne invasion in history.

“Today we remember those who fell and we honor those who fought right here in Normandy. They won back this ground for civilization for more than 107 veterans of the Second World War.," Trump said. "You are the glory of our Republic and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts."

Earlier, the president tweeted an excerpt from his D-Day remarks.

"They did not know if they would survive the hour," the president wrote. "They did not know if they would grow old. But they knew that America had to prevail. Their cause was this Nation, and generations yet unborn."

The day is billed as “the beginning of the end of war in Europe.” Operation Overlord was supposed to start June 5, 1944, under United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower's orders, but bad weather delayed the attack.

Here are some quotes, from GoodReads, about the invasion:

1. "Sixty-five years ago in the thin light of gray dawn, more than 1,000 small craft took to a rough sea on a day that will be forever a day of bravery. On that June morning the young of our nations stepped out on those beaches below and into history. As long as freedom lives their deeds will never die." — former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

2. "This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.'' — former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

3. "We know that progress is not inevitable. But neither was victory upon these beaches. Now, as then, the inner voice tells us to stand up and move forward. Now, as then, free people must choose." — former U.S. President Bill Clinton

4. “Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.” ― Stephen E. Ambrose

5. "The first night in France I spent in a ditch beside a hedgerow wrapped in a damp shelter-half and thoroughly exhausted. But I felt elated. It had been the greatest experience of my life. I was 10 feet tall. No matter what happened, I had made it off the beach and reached the high ground. I was king of the hill, at least in my own mind, for a moment." — Sgt. John Ellery