Some of the last surviving veterans gathered in France on Saturday to mark the anniversary of D-Day, marking 82 years since the Allied landing in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
Veterans will take part in the annual remembrance ceremony at the British Normandy Memorial.
Only six people have confirmed their attendance this year, the lowest number to attend the ceremony since the memorial opened in 2021.
The commemoration began with French schoolchildren walking down Juno Beach to mark H-Hour, the time at which British troops were deployed.
What is D Day?
On June 6, 1944, approximately 160,000 Allied forces, composed of soldiers from Britain, the United States, Canada, France, and several other countries, landed in Normandy on the coast of northern France.
This date became known as “D-Day” – a military term for the first day of an operation. “D” stands for day only.
Allied forces launch Operation Overlord, leading to the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control.
On D-Day alone, 4,400 soldiers of the combined Allied forces were killed. The exact number of German casualties that day is not known, but estimates range from 4,000 to 9,000 killed, wounded, or missing.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko
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