D-Day marking ceremonies kicked off

Britain's Prince Charles lays a wreath at the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards Memorial in Cruelly in Normandy, northern France yesterday. World leaders and thousands of veterans are gathering in Normandy today to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings. PHOTO: AFP

At the western end of the coast where the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation began, grey parachutes blossomed open in lead-grey skies in a spectacular renactment of the capture by the US 82nd Airborne Division of the village of Sainte-Mere-Eglise.

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The aim was to seize the village at 1:00 am, five hours before 135,000 Allied troops began landing on the 100-kilometre (60-mile) beaches to launch the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Sainte-Mere-Eglise was the first village liberated, but many of the US soldiers who dropped there, carrying heavy guns and other equipment, drowned in deep ditches and flooded land before they could even fire a shot.

At the village of Ranville, members of the British First Parachute Regiment, were to re-enact the legendary operation to capture Pegasus Bridge across the Orne River and secure the eastern flank of the beach landings.

Britain's Prince Charles paid tribute to the 90 paratroopers who flew in darkness aboard three wooden gliders and crash-landed just after midnight on or close to the bridge in a surprise attack which has entered the annals of military history. They were among 380 British gliders which floated into Normandy that night.