Brit World War 2 heroes return to Normandy where they fought for D-Day memorial honouring their fallen comrades
BRITISH World War II heroes have returned to Normandy where they fought in the D-Day landings to honour their fallen comrades.
The veterans travelled by ferry from Portsmouth to mark the 74th anniversary of the Normandy Landings on June 6.
The D-Day landings in 1944 saw 156,000 troops from the allied countries including the UK, US and France join forces to launch an attack on the beaches of Normandy which helped lead to the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.
The veterans have made the pilgrimage with groups such as the charity D-Day Revisited.
And this year is set to be particularly poignant as next year - the 75th anniversary - will be the charities' final organised visit.
In the moving pictures, the veterans are seen attending an at-sea wreath laying ceremony on the Brittany ferry to Caen.
In one picture, John Quinn - a Royal Marine who was on a landing craft that landed on Gold Beach on D-Day - throws a wreath from the deck into the water.
The WW2 veterans also attended a wreath laying ceremony at the Tactical Air Force Memorial beside Omaha Beach at Vierville-sur-Mer in Normandy, near Bayeux.
Susan Eisenhower - the granddaughter of US President and army general Dwight D. Eisenhower who was Allied supreme commander at the time of the D-Day Landings - was also there.
Amongst the veterans to attend was 95-year-old Brit Ray Shuck, who was a paratrooper on D-Day and was later shot in the head by a German sniper.
While Lesley George Robinson, 98, the last survivor of the RAF veterans who landed at Omaha Beach, laid a wreath at the ceremony.
World War Two re-enactors also spoke with Normandy veterans while military pipers played at the ceremony.
The Normandy landings - code-named Operation Neptune - were the largest seaborne invasion in history.
Nearly 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers were involved.
The troops began landing on the coast of France at 6.30am, along the targeted stretch of Normandy coast, which was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
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The men landed under heavy fire, and the shore was mined and covered with deadly obstacles, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous.
It's estimated there were at least 10,000 casualties amongst the allies on the first day of the Normandy Landings, with over 4,000 confirmed dead.
In total, more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy, including over 209,000 Allied casualties, with nearly 37,000 dead amongst the ground forces and a further 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces.
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