Thousands mark D-Day 80th anniversary at Duxford air show

The D-Day landings, also known as Operation Overlord, was one of the most decisive military campaigns of World War Two.

It saw 156,000 Allied troops arrive in Normandy on 6 June 1944 for a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France.

At this point, Duxford airfield was the headquarters of the 78th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces’ 8th Air Force, flying fighter aircraft such as P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs.

“Only a very few of the objectives for D-Day were reached at the end of 6 June, but it was enough for the Allies to get a foothold into Europe to then go further,” said historical re-enactor Mark Bailey.

He runs an educational project called Discover D-Day, based in Attleborough, Norfolk, which is “mainly about the American Airborne and Army in the last year of the Second World War”.

“We cover a very wide range of things,” he said. “We cover a lot of things to do with engineers, we talk about explosives, the way weapons were developed during the war.

“We also talk about poeple who were forgotten, so the people who would do all the clerical work, paying of the troops making sure they had the right equipment in the right place at the right time.”