D-day events on both sides of the Channel
On Wednesday, Charles and Camilla, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, will attend the UK’S national commemorative event in Portsmouth, which will be covered by BBC1 from 10.15am. Normandy veterans heading for France will receive a spectacular send-off as they cross the Channel with the RAF’S Red Arrows display team performing a flypast, while
Royal Navy ships in Portsmouth harbour will sail past in formation, sounding their sirens.
Over in Normandy, the Princess Royal, as Colonel-in-chief of the Royal Regina Rifles, will unveil a statue of a Second World War Canadian Royal Regina Rifleman.
The Parachute Regiment will also hold remembrance services, including a parachute drop at 2pm and a midnight vigil at Pegasus Bridge, followed by other services on June 6.
Princess Anne will attend an annual service of remembrance at Bayeux Cathedral. Then from 8.30pm, also on BBC1, she will join Normandy veterans and French representatives at a Royal British Legion Service of
Commemoration at the Bayeux War Cemetery, where she will give a speech in remembrance of those who lost their lives during the operation.
On Thursday, D-day itself, there will be national and community organised events where the public can get involved.
At 8am, town criers around the UK, Channel Islands, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia
and Bermuda will read out the King’s D-day 80 Proclamation.
From 8.30am, the BBC will cover the King and Queen as they lead the first-ever national commemoration at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-surmer, overlooking Gold Beach.
The Prince of Wales will attend the Canadian ceremony at the Juno Beach Centre and then join 25 Heads of State and veterans at the international commemorative ceremony at Omaha Beach.
At 2pm, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will join veterans and their families at the Royal British Legion’s Service of Remembrance, held at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, which is open to the public.
At 7.30pm, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester will attend D-day 80: Remembering the Normandy Landings, evening of music-led, multi-generational storytelling at the Royal Albert Hall.
Alongside the national events, at 11am schoolchildren will be encouraged to read the Poems For Schools D-day Heroes. In the evening, villages, towns and community hubs will host events.
At 9.10pm, pipers in the nation’s capitals and abroad will play in tribute to piper William Millin, who led the troops ashore on Sword Beach. And at 9.15pm beacons and red hurricane lanterns – “Lamp Lights of Peace” – will be lit across the UK and aboard, including along Hadrian’s Wall and the four highest peaks of each nation.
The International Tribute will be read out.
And to mark the war effort of the UK’S fishermen and farmers, fish and chip shops aim to sell 156,000 portions – representing the number of men and women who landed on D-day, with £1 divided between the four charities involved: the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy Associations, Royal Air
Force Benevolent Fund and ABF The Soldiers’ Charity. The charities also benefit from purchases of “Lamp Lights of Peace”.