VETERANS gathered today in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings.

The allied landings were a pivotal moment of World War II that, along with the heroic efforts of the Soviet Union’s Red Army from the east, eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical re-enactments.

Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late nineties and older. All remembered the thousands who died.

The June 6 1944, the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France used the largest-ever armada of ships, troops, planes and vehicles to breach Hitler's defences in western Europe.

About 156,000 men sailed across the Channel in 6,000 assorted ships and landing craft before fearlessly storming five beaches.

Of those, 73,000 were from the United States and 83,000 from Britain and Canada. Forces from several other countries were also involved, including French troops fighting with General Charles de Gaulle. The Allies faced about 50,000 German troops.

More than two million Allied soldiers, sailors, pilots, medics and other people from a dozen countries were involved in the overall Operation Overlord, the battle to wrest western France from Nazi control that started on D-Day.

A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself.

In the following battle of Normandy, 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded.

The exact German casualties are unknown, but historians estimate that between 4,000 and 9,000 men were killed, wounded or missing during the D-Day invasion alone.

“The heroism, honour and sacrifice of the Allied forces on D-Day will always resonate with the US Armed Forces and our Allies and partners across Europe,” said Lieutenant General Jason T Hinds, deputy commander of US Air Forces in Europe — Air Forces Africa. “So let us remember those who flew and fell.”

Wheelchair-using D-Day hero Don Turrell, now aged 99, was among the handful of veterans who returned to France to mark the anniversary.

He visited the graves of teenage Rifleman William Carr and Lance Sergeant Robert Bremner, 29, who died from motor fire during the battle for Hill 112, on June 26 1944.

He said: “I am back here to remember mates who were killed. I feel close to them. I speak their names aloud. I haven’t forgotten them and I never will.”