Queen Elizabeth is not amused. Indeed,she is decidedly displeased,angry even,that she was not invited to join US President Obama and Frances President Nicolas Sarkozy next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy,according to reports published in Britains tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly,Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports. The Queen,who is 83,is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor,service number 230873,she volunteered as a subaltern in the Womens Auxiliary Territorial Service,training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually,she drove military trucks in support roles in England. While serving,she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings,Gen Dwight D Eisenhower,and developed a fondness for him,according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth,who was crowned in June 1953,to say in later years that he was the American President with whom she felt most at ease. But on June 6,when Obama and Sarkozy attend commemorations at the iconic locations associated with the American D-Day assault,the highest-ranking British representative will be Prime Minister Gordon Brown. How the Queen came to be excluded has become entangled in a thicket of diplomatic missteps,or misunderstandings,depending on whether the account is given in London or Paris. The French have said officially that they regard the commemorations in the American sector of the landings as primarily a Franco-American ceremony,and that it was up to the British to decide who should represent Britain in other words,that Brown was at fault for not seeking an invitation for the Queen. The French have said the Brown Government was slow to accept that the ceremonies merited more than a modest British involvement,since British policy had been to give full-scale Government backing only to commemorations at decade-long intervals. The last of those was the 60th anniversary in 2004,when the Queen joined President George W Bush in the Normandy observances. British veterans groups demanded more backing for this years ceremonies on the grounds that only a handful of soldiers who fought in Normandy were likely to be alive at the 70th anniversary in 2014.
