A special service will take place in Southport this Thursday (6th June 2024) to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
The event, organised by Southport Royal British Legion, will take place at Southport War Memorial on Lord Street in Southport town centre.
Visitors are invited to meet at the Monument at 10.15am.
The service itself will take place between 10.30am and 11am.
It will include the playing of The Last Post, a two minutes’ silence, and a wreath laying ceremony in honour of all those who lost their lives during and after the conflict.
One of the wreaths will be laid in honour of Southport D-Day veteran Harry Howorth, who recently died aged 102.
After the service, Southport Royal British Legion volunteers will be present with their gazebo, selling D-Day 80th anniversary pin badges and chatting with members of the public about their forthcoming Armed Forces Day celebrations which will take place in Southport on Sunday 30th June 2024.
Southport Royal British legion Chair Major Nick McEntee said: “This will be a very poignant service here in Southport, where we have sadly lost Harry Howorth very recently.
“It will also be a moving event across the UK and in France, as perhaps the last milestone D-Day commemoration event where the final surviving D-Day veterans will be present.
“A total of 4,414 British servicemen lost their lives on D-Day itself.
“It is important that we never forget the huge sacrifice they made.”
The Normandy D-Day landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6th June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War Two.
It included Operation Neptune, the largest seaborne invasion in history.
D-Day was the start of the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, which had been invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940.
The operation gained a foothold that the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.
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