On the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, royalty and world leaders will join with veterans in Normandy.
The King and Queen will join Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron at the UK’s national commemoration event at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer to pay respect to dead servicemen.
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The complex, which will open in 2021, honors the 22,442 British-commanded service personnel who perished on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944.
This will be the memorial’s first big anniversary event, and Charles and Camilla will launch the Winston Churchill Center for Education and Learning after the commemorations on Thursday.
Their visit follows an emotional ceremony in Portsmouth on Wednesday, during which the King appeared to wipe away a tear while praising veterans’ “courage, resilience, and solidarity.”.
Meanwhile, William will attend the Canadian memorial event at the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer, before joining over 25 heads of state and veterans for the formal international celebration on Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer.
The day will begin early with a piper on the beach at Arromanches to commemorate the largest seaborne invasion in military history, followed by commemorations in the French town with a veterans march and fireworks display.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission will lead a service at Bayeux War Cemetery, France’s largest Commonwealth cemetery from World War II.
A beacon-lighting ceremony will take place in Aylesford, Kent, while an 80-strong flotilla of boats will depart from Falmouth, Cornwall, where thousands of troops have embarked to participate in the invasion.
The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will attend a Royal British Legion memory service at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, while the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester will meet veterans during a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Davina McCall will host D-Day 80: Remembering the Normandy Landings, which will feature music from the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Lulu, Katherine Jenkins, Emeli Sande, and Katie Ashby, lead vocalist of D-Day Darlings.
The Met Office predicted that the weather would be “generally dry” during the commemorations.
According to Met Office forecaster Craig Snell, it will be rather dry on both sides of the channel.
“It should not interfere with any commemorations that take place during the day.”
“It’ll be better weather than they had in 1944.” Less windy and most likely sunnier.”
