Photos: Normandy ceremonies honor D-Day soldiers

Military re-enactors look on as 280 paratroopers take part in a parachute drop onto fields on June 5, 2019 in Sannerville, France, ahead of D-Day commemorations.

The Normandy invasion was a pivotal moment in World War II, weakening the Nazis' hold on Western Europe after they suffered a punishing defeat in Stalingrad in the east.

Canadian veterans of the Battle of Normandy stand during a ceremony at a cemetery on June 5 near Reviers, France.

About 38 Canadian veterans took part in the ceremony at the cemetery that contains the graves of approximately 2,000 Canadian soldiers killed during D-Day and the subsequent fighting, one of several scattered across Normandy.

Native American World War II veteran Charles Shay takes part in a ceremony on Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer on June 5. 

A soldier holds a British flag on the beach of Arromanches early on June 6 during D-Day commemorations.

Members of the French group Overlord 76 plant red roses in the sand in tribute to slain American soldiers on Utah Beach in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.

Cannons open fire in the Normandy American Cemetery to commemorate the anniversary.

The invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord and commanded by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, remains the largest amphibious assault in history and involved almost 7,000 ships and landing craft along a 50-mile stretch of the French coast.

British army veteran Cedric Wasser looks at the graves of fallen soldiers during a Service of Remembrance at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Bayeux, Normandy.

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron watch a flyover at the American Normandy cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.

Trump and Macron talk to a World War II veteran in Colleville-sur-Mer.

A visitor pauses to photograph one of the many crosses at the Normandy American Cemetery near Colleville-Sur-Mer, France.

The cemetery contains the graves of over 9,600 U.S. soldiers killed on D-Day and in the Battle of Normandy.

U.S. soldier Sgt. Charles Franck Simon is memorialized in a photo planted on Utah Beach.

British veteran John Lamont, right, looks at some of the gravestones ahead of a memorial service in Bayeux. 

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May face the new sculpture at the British Normandy Memorial during a Franco-British ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day landings at Ver-Sur-Mer. 

People walk among vintage World War II vehicles parked on the beach in Arromanches.

President Donald Trump reaches out to touch a gravestone in the Normandy American Cemetery.

75 years ago: Photos from the D-Day invasion