78th anniversary of historic D-Day Normandy landings

L-R: Councillors Angela Smith, Shaun O`Neill and Patricia Sullivan stood in silence as the flag was raised

A flag raising to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the historic D-Day Normandy landings was held at Number One Riverside on Monday (6 June).

Councillors Angela Smith, Shaun O'Neill and Patricia Sullivan stood in silence as the flag was raised.

In the absence of any formal proceedings, Councillor O'Neill recited the Exhortation and the Kohima Epitaph:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
‘When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today’.

The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 were one of the greatest turning points of World War II.

More than 156,000 men landed in Normandy – 83,000 of these were from Britain and the Commonwealth – in a long-delayed, cross-channel Allied invasion of northern France to surprise the Germans. An immense army was placed in Nazi-occupied Europe, never to be dislodged.

Had the D-Day landings failed, another landing would not have been possible for at least another year, delaying efforts to defeat the Nazis.