15-Oct-2023

D-Day 80 At the British Normandy memorial

SIGN UP FOR INFORMATION ABOUT D-DAY 80 AT THE BRITISH NORMANDY MEMORIAL

If you are a veteran, family member, or carer, and wish to attend events in Normandy or the UK, register your interest with the Royal British Legion. This includes events at the British Normandy Memorial. The deadline for registering interest is Saturday 21 October.

The Royal British Legion will be marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day with events in Normandy, as well as national and community events.

 

The Ministry of Defence will work with the Royal British Legion, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Normandy Memorial Trust to host major commemorations of the 80^th anniversary of the Normandy Landings next year.

Veterans of the Normandy campaign will be at the heart of official events in the United Kingdom and France on 6 June 2024. 

For the first time, the British Normandy Memorial at Ver-sur-Mer, Normandy, will host commemorations for a major anniversary of D-Day. 

Official commemorations will also take place at Bayeux Cathedral and at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Bayeux War Cemetery in Normandy.

Commemorative events will also take place in the United Kingdom for veterans who are unable to make the journey to France.

The events in June 2024 will bring the UK and its allies together to remember our shared history and to bolster our cooperation to protect peace and security today.

Further information about all the events is available here.

Members of the public will be included in a campaign of events, tributes and broadcasts to ensure the whole country can pay respects to the fallen of D-Day. More information about the commemorations will be announced next year.

General Lord Dannatt, Chairman of Trustees for the Normandy Memorial Trust said:

“The 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings will be a significant moment for the nation, a reminder of the United Kingdom’s vital role in re-establishing western Europe’s freedoms, a reminder too that tyranny must always be challenged. 

“The British Normandy Memorial is proud to be the setting for the British national commemoration. On 6 June next year we will remember those who gave their lives in the summer of 1944 in the cause of freedom and welcome, with profound gratitude, some of the last, indefatigable members of that remarkable wartime generation.”

D-Day veteran 98-year-old Jack Quinn CDS Leg d’Hon, coxswain of a Royal Marines landing craft overnight on 5 June 1944, said:

“As Veteran Ambassador for the British Normandy Memorial, and having visited the memorial several times, I am delighted that we will finally be able to remember all our fallen comrades of the Normandy campaign in this very unique and poignant setting for the first time on a major D-Day anniversary.”