OFF THE COAST OF NORMANDY, France -- Warships gathered in the English Channel Sunday, as they did 50 years ago.
Then, the massing was secret, dangerous. Sunday, it was a festive, proud commemoration of the beginning of the D-Day invasion.
With heads of government and veterans from the 14 Allied nations that participated in the landing watching, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey presided over a re-enactment of a traditional battlefield religious ceremony in Portsmouth, England, before the ships sailed.
Before a backdrop of the Navy Memorial and a flotilla of 54 warships and 10 merchant vessels in the harbor, drums were again stacked to create a makeshift altar.
Troops draped their nations' flags over it, then prayers were offered, as they have been since the tradition began in the time of Napoleon.
No world leaders spoke. Instead, the focus was on the veterans. After prayers and national anthems, the world's most powerful men and women trudged through the mud to thank their D-Day veterans.
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks read from the Bible's Book of Psalms: "Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters. . . . Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love."
Saturday's weather was a recreation of D-Day, with downpours and gale-force winds. But Sunday, the skies cleared with a brisk breeze.
As many as 75,000 people gathered for the service, the flotilla's parade and the fly-over of vintage World War II aircraft like the P-51 Mustang and Spitfire and modern jets. One group created a stunning precision formation reading "50."
President Clinton and other world leaders joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth aboard her yacht, the HMS Brittania, to review the flotilla. Thousands of boats crowded the harbor.
Said Clinton, "I was trying to imagine . . . 50 years ago. . . . I felt enormous pride. We're here with these sporting vessels because of what we did 50 years ago. Our system and our values prevailed."
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As Brittania raced past the USS George Washington, the U.S. sailors honored the queen with a British salute, at attention with their white hats held in upraised right hands. Over loudspeakers came: "Hip, hip, hip." Shouted the sailors: "Hooray."
Clinton said, "The Queen . . . talked about how important it was not only rallying to the cause of war but continuing to do ordinary things. The Queen told that on D-Day, 'I was at the dentist.' "
In Portsmouth, reporters overheard Hillary Rodham Clinton saying she was cold. The president at one point put his arm around her to keep her warm.
Clinton also visited the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, a 51-year-old restored merchant marine ship now run by volunteers. It is the sole survivor of the 5,000-ship armada to Normandy. The O'Brien carried 10 Army officers, 563 troops, 135 armored vehicles and 167 tons of explosives to Normandy's Omaha Beach.
At sunset, a steady rain fell on Portsmouth and fighter jets roared overhead, red, white and blue plumes trailing behind them.
About 40 miles out to sea in mid-Channel, veterans aboard the royal yacht cast wreaths into the water and a vintage Lancaster bomber dropped 2 million poppies - symbols of the war dead to the British.
Clinton spent Sunday night aboard the George Washington.
He spoke to sailors in the carrier's hangar bay and stood by as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda administered an oath to 62 re-enlisting sailors. Clinton saluted each.
Alphonso Gray, 24, an airman from Winston-Salem, N.C., sat up front, cheering Clinton. "I voted for him. He'd get my vote again. He is very much for the people."
Said Airman Eldridge Ketter, 48, from Madison, N.C.: "He's a great leader. . . . I like his style handling his job because he is a man who came in with a lot of obstacles and he wasn't bothered by them." GRAPHIC: PHOTO, b/w, Greg English, AP LOAD-DATE-MDC: June 08, 1994June 08, 1994June 08, 1994June 08, 1994June 08, 1994June 08, 1994
