D-day landings 70th anniversary – live coverage

This is certainly the first D-day anniversary in which social media has played such a part in commemorations:

My colleague Kim Willsher is on Sword beach and sends this report:

The soldiers, resplendent in uniforms and chests bursting with medals and ribbons, had come from around the world to regroup – much as they had 70 years ago – on the beaches of Normandy.

They were fewer in number and not as sprightly as they had been on that day, June 6, 1944, when they had sprinted across the sand, weaving around the bodies of fallen comrades to avoid the German machine guns and shells. The years have passed, but the memories have never faded.

It was, as President François Hollande told veterans and world leaders gathered to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings, a day that should never and would never be forgotten.

Hollande told guests including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian president Vladimir Putin, newly elected Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, US president Barack Obama and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth:

The 6th June is not a day like others: it is not just the longest day or a day to remember the dead, but a day for the living to keep the promise written with the blood of the fighters, to be loyal to their sacrifice by building a world that is fairer and more human.

Those young men did not hesitate for one second. They advanced … at the risk of their own lives to combat a diabolic regime, they advanced for a noble cause, they advanced to liberate us.

They were heroes. They were all heroes. The 6th June they began to liberate France. As the sun set on that longest day a light shone on enslaved Europe.

Hollande said it was an "exceptional day" of unity and there was a duty of memory to all the war’s victims "military, civilians, Allies and the German victims of Nazism".

In a nod to the Ukraine conflict he added that the day was a "message of peace and a requirement for a United Nations that intervenes where it’s necessary for the collective security … and a Europe that has allowed peace on a continent that was at war throughout the 20th century".

Greying, hesitant, many leaning on walking sticks, the D-day veterans embark once again for the beaches of Normandy.

That was how the Guardian’s front page on 6 June 1994 marked the 50th anniversary of D-day.

John Ezard reported on:

the grandeur of the rituals, the intense response from 3,000 survivors of the ‘free men’ embarked on a flotilla back to France, and the verve of a turnout by thousands of yachts and small craft in the Solent.

Thanks to my colleague Phil Lewis who unearthed the front pages and archived reports for this live blog.

A reader sends this submission via GuardianWitness – an account by able seaman Tom Fenwick (the reader’s grandfather) about watching US army rangers landing on the beach on D-day:

I was a member of the ammunition party supplying shells for the 4” guns and an enormous amount passed through my hands. At the height of the bombardment there was gunfire and smoke as far as the eye could see, both up and down the coast.

US soldiers, the Texas Rangers and the Marines landed in flat-bottomed boats and powered catamarans. They stood with arms locked together so that each craft was filled to its utmost capacity. The Texas Rangers were heaving grappling irons up the cliffs and climbing ropes under heavy fire to wipe out the guns which were raining bullets down on them.

Landing craft deposited hundreds of tanks on the beaches preceded by crawler tractors laying wire mesh tank track to form a path of solid ground. All the time guns were blazing and the air was filled with acrid smoke. Even in those days the accuracy of the shooting was remarkable.

US Texas received a message that enemy artillery in a wood 20 miles inland were hampering the landings. The US Texas delivered one broadside to the co-ordinates and got a message immediately that the job had been done.

Whilst the bombardment continued it seemed to us on the ship that we were invincible and that not one shot was being fired by the enemy, but when the smoke cleared after 3 hours, we could see an enormous amount of casualties. In fact it seemed as if it were possible to walk to the shore on dead bodies of men without getting your feet wet.

However, looking through the range finder some little time later I saw that, in the middle of countryside torn to chalk and trees reduced to kindling, the hospital tents were up and the medics getting on with their jobs.

At this time on 6 June 1944, Germany’s Field Marshal Rommel finally engages with the D-day invasion:

18.00hrs
La Roche-Guyon, River Seine

Rommel returns to his headquarters from six months in charge of building up the defences of the Atlantic Wall. Millions of tons of concrete and steel went into them, along with a quarter of a million mines, beach obstacles and thousands of gun nests sited at key points.

He believed the first 24 hours of the invasion would be critical and that the defenders must drive the Allies back into the sea as they struggled ashore across well-defended beaches.

But, convinced that the weather and tides were unsuitable for an invasion, he went on leave on 5 June to be with his wife at home near Stuttgart for her 50th birthday. Called back early in the morning, he spent all of D-day driving across Germany and Occupied France, so Germany’s most charismatic general missed the most important day of the war.

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

At the international ceremony on Sword beach in Ouistreham, French veteran Leon Gautier of the Kieffer commando (on the left, below) and German veteran paratrooper Johannes Borner (on the right) have embraced on stage as a sign of reconciliation.

At the ceremony in Arromanches, the choir and veterans have just sung We’ll Meet Again. Now the pipers are leading them in Auld Lang Syne. Most of the veterans are standing, despite the encouragement to sit by Rev Mandy Reynolds, who’s leading the service. It’s very hot there, and most of the veterans have been out all day.

Hot on the heels of his round-up of the best movie depictions of D-day, my colleague Tom McCarthy has put together this collection of newsreels from June 1944:

Jack Lieb captured the invasion on silent film for News of the Day and later narrated over the film for the archives. ‘You notice, the men didn’t dash ashore after being aboard a landing craft for five solid days,’ Lieb says.

‘They just walked slowly and cautiously, fearful of bombs and mines that were sown in the area. You notice they had their rifles wrapped in cellophane.’

Guests at the international ceremony at Sword beach have been watching archive black and white movie footage and live performances telling the story of the Allied troops in Normandy.

Queen Elizabeth II appeared in some of the black-and-white footage that was shown – during the second world war, she served with the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a mechanic and military truck driver. She was featured leaning over the engine of the vehicle, working on it.

A large group of performers also staged a drama in four acts, which documented occupied Europe, D-day, the long road to victory and post-war peace.

President Obama seemed to be impressed by the Prince of Wales’ medals:

The 89-year-old veteran who went missing from a nursing home in Sussex, only to turn up in Ouistreham today, has been named as Bernard Jordan, a former mayor of Hove and Normandy veteran:

By this time on 6 June 1944, Canadian troops had fought their way across Juno beach:

17.00hrs
Caen, Normandy

Having fought their way forward from Juno beach, advance patrols of the Canadian 9th Brigade report that the road to Caen lies open. Caen was an important D-Day objective, but now plans are changing and they are refused permission to advance into the city. It will take a month of bitter fighting and the death of thousands of French civilians before the remains of Caen, flattened by bombing, are finally captured by the Allies.

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

Prince William is speaking at the ceremony in Arromanches now. He says 6 June 1944 was "a great and terrible day":

Great because it signalled the beginning of the end of Nazism.

Terrible because so many young men – and French women and children – lost their lives.

It is vital that the sacrifice – and the reasons for that sacrifice – are never forgotten, he says.

Speaking yesterday, Brigadier David Baines, 89, president of the Normandy Veterans Association, explained why this would be the last commemoration here. Baines, who was a gunner in the Royal Artillery and landed on Gold Beach, said:

This is a very special time because we know it’s our last big occasion here.

We know that many of us won’t be alive in five years’ time, and probably not even in a year or two.

The NVA will disband in November, hanging up its banners in a final ceremony at York Minster.

The veterans’ parade in Arromanches has begun. It’s quite a spectacle. I’ve taken these pictures from BBC News:

Historian Dan Snow is speaking at the ceremony at Arromanches. He points out that this year’s commemorations mark the final outing for the Normandy Veterans Association, whose members have dwindled to just 600.

The mayor of Arromanches and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have now arrived at the ceremony, to the sound of the British national anthem. We will shortly see the veterans’ parade.

A moving set of extracts from Anne Frank’s diary of 6 June 1944:

The Manchester Guardian of 8 June 1944 reported that daily prayer services were being held in London churches for the invasion.

The short report (which appears to contain a misprinted line – how un-Guardian) relates that "several hundreds of people" were at St Paul’s for the midday intercession:

The Dean took the service of prayer and hymn and read, with adaptations to this country, the invasion prayer of President Roosevelt.

You can read Roosevelt’s prayer – delivered on national radio in the US on the night of June 6, 1944 – here.

A ceremony is to begin shortly on the sea front at Arromanches, organised by the Surrey branch of the Normandy Veterans Association and the Arromanches local authority. There’ll be a parade of veterans, a drumhead service and laying of wreaths at memorials adjacent to the D-day Museum in the town.

Prince William is also expected to make a speech.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, still in Arromanches, are now meeting the historian Antony Beevor, who is telling them about the landings. This is from BBC News:

More on the 89-year-old veteran who went missing from a nursing home in Sussex, only to turn up in Ouistreham today:

An 89-year-old veteran reported missing from a nursing home was found in France marking the anniversary of the D-day landings. The pensioner, who left wearing his war medals, has contacted the home and said his friends are going to make sure he gets back safely when the commemorations end.

Sussex police were called at 7.15pm on Thursday by staff at the Pines care home, Furze Hill, in Hove, who said an 89-year-old who lived there had gone out at 10.30am and had not been seen since. He had gone out wearing a grey mackintosh and a jacket underneath with his war medals on, police said.

Officers began searching the area, including checking hospitals in case something had happened to him, and spoke to bus and taxi companies, but none of them knew where he was.

The nursing home received a phone call from a younger veteran from Brighton at 10.30pm who said he had met the pensioner on a coach on the way to France and that they were safe and well in a hotel in Ouistreham.

In a statement, Sussex Police said:

We have spoken to the veteran who called the home today and are satisfied that the pensioner is fine and that his friends are going to ensure he gets back to Hove safely over the next couple of days after the D-Day celebrations finish.

Once the pensioner is home we will go and have a chat with him to check he is ok.

Sussex Police said they would not be naming the man.

A spokesman for the Pines care home said it was "definitely not the case" that the veteran was banned from attending D-day commemorations. A Sussex Police spokesman also denied reports that the home prevented the veteran attending the event. The home is expected to release a statement.

I’ve taken the report from the Press Association.

Another submission from a reader to GuardianWitness shows this group from the 13th Paratroop Battalion with their Dakota aircraft before they took part in the D-day invasion:

Although naturally the focus of today’s commemorations is Normandy, events are taking place around the world to mark the 70th anniversary of D-day. Here, the RAF Red Arrows perform an aerial display over the Solent near Portsmouth as part of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-day.

The Hampshire naval port was the departure point for the troops heading to Sword beach.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are now having tea with veterans at Arromanches (the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are still at the official ceremony at Ouistreham).

Earlier, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands also took tea with Dutch veterans in Arromanches.

At 4pm on 6 June 1944, Hitler finally made a decision to send reinforcements to Normandy. He was still unconvinced that the Allies could inflict much damage:

16.00hrs
Berchtesgaden

After pleading from von Rundstedt, Hitler finally orders the 12th SS and the Panzer Lehr Divisions from deep in France towards Normandy. It is too late to make any difference on D-day,but they will dramatically slow the Allied break-out from Normandy. Hitler remains convinced well into July that the landings are a deception.

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are in Arromanches now, meeting the mayor and some local residents, plus a group from Italy.

Arromanches has just witnessed a flypast by a Dakota, Lancaster and two Spitfires, in the black-and-white stripes of the D-day aircraft.

Reuters has filed this report on the meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko, brokered by French president Francois Hollande at today’s D-day commemorations:

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine held their first talks on Friday since Moscow annexed Crimea, discussing ways to end their four-month conflict in a brief encounter during commemorations in France of the World War Two D-Day landings.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought together Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko for a 15-minute meeting before they joined other dignitaries for lunch.

Putin later had an equally short "informal" talk with U.S. President Barack Obama, the White House said.

Hollande’s office said Putin and Poroshenko shook hands and agreed that detailed talks on a ceasefire between Kiev government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine would begin within a few days. They also discussed steps such as Russian recognition of Poroshenko’s election as well as economic relations.

‘It was a normal, serious exchange between two leaders,’ an official in Hollande’s office said. ‘This marks tentative progress which he [Hollande] welcomes, particularly given this occasion so symbolic for peace.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said the two leaders urged a ‘speedy end to the bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine as well as to fighting on both sides’.

‘It was confirmed that there is no other alternative to resolve the situation than through peaceful political means,’ the spokesman said.

Hollande had invited Poroshenko to Normandy as his personal guest at the last minute in an effort to break the ice between Moscow and Kiev even as fighting continues in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists.

A White House official said Putin and Obama, who had avoided contact with the Russian leader while the two were in Paris on Thursday – also spoke to each other before the lunch.

‘It was an informal conversation – not a formal bilateral meeting,’ White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said by email, adding the encounter lasted 10-15 minutes.

This report from the Manchester Guardian of 10 June 1944 details the welcome received by Allied troops from French villagers in Normandy. Our reporter wrote:

I found they gave no riotous welcome to our troops – after four years of occupation you could hardly expect enough energy for that – but they showed their appreciation in more substantial ways, and any soldier who looked thirsty was called over and handed a tumbler of good, dry Normandy cider.

Back at the ceremony in Ouistreham, where the veterans and dignitaries are watching a dance performance. I won’t attempt to describe it but here’s a picture I’ve managed to take from Sky News:

What are the best Hollywood tributes to the D-day landings? My colleague Tom McCarthy compiles the best. Unsurprisingly, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan features:

Try this scene of the Omaha Beach landings from the film if you are in the UK.

Hollande says the world still needs to address the plight of many women today who are "servile" and abused.

Our responsibility is to fight against fanatics, extremists, nationalists.

We must all be as courageous as those who came on to these beaches.

He mentions climate change, the financial crash, unemployment. These are not comparable to the second world war, he says, but they are factors in society’s ills.

Hollande goes on:

70 years later, freedom is still threatened in too many countries around the world.

We must ensure the UN is capable of the mission that was given to it the day after the war: collective security.

I have talked about courage in war. Courage in peace is just as essential and necessary.

Hollande says France and her allies are indebted to Russia’s Red Army and the courage of its soldiers.

He also salutes the courage of Germans "who were also the victims of Nazism".

Hollande says "the wind of freedom" the D-day troops brought still blows across Europe today.

I want, in the name of France, to salute those who are present here today. Thank you. Thank you for being there in 1944. Thank you for still being here … You will always be here, your spirit, on these landing beaches.

He salutes the British, Americans, Canadians, Polish, Australians and all the nationalities who served with the Allies.

Hollande talks about the small group of Frenchmen "whose valour was enormous" who helped with the D-day invasion.

Reader Thomas Fourquet sent us this story, via GuardianWitness, of his grandfather, Michel Fourquet, a French officer who joined D-day as part of the resistance:

Hollande says:

We have an obligation to remember the victims – all the victims. The military and civilians, the Allies and the German victims of Nazism.

At the same time, we’d like to put across a message from today’s ceremony, a message of peace … A message for Europe.

70 years ago, on this beautiful beach, thousands of young men jumped into the water … Who could have guessed that 20 years was the most beautiful age? For them, 20 years was the age of duty, the age of sacrifice.

These young people didn’t hesitate for a second. They advanced, risking their lives. They progressed in order to defend a noble cause … to finally liberate us.

Flags from all the 19 countries attending today’s ceremony are now being paraded at Ouistreham.

President Hollande is now about to speak. You can read what he said earlier, in his speech at the US war cemetery, here.

An 89-year-old veteran reported missing from a nursing home in Sussex has been found – in Ouistreham.

Cheers at Sword beach as the Queen arrives. The veterans in the front row – sheltered by umbrellas now; it’s very hot in Normandy today – all stand to greet her.

She takes her seat next to President Hollande – everybody has now arrived and the ceremony should now begin, an hour later than planned.

The brass band at Ouistreham is now playing It’s A Long Way to Tipperary, which – given they’ve been playing for nearly three hours and the ceremony itself is already running almost an hour behind schedule and there are still guests yet to arrive – must feel appropriate. It’s a long way to go.

Barack Obama has now arrived at the Ouistreham ceremony, to a pounding round of applause. He’s now shaking hands and chatting with the row of veterans at the front. "It’s a pleasure to shake your hand," one tells him.

And there’s laughter from the crowds as a side-by-side shot of Obama and Putin – they’re not sitting together – is shown on the big screens there.

Reuters reports that Obama and Putin held short talks at lunch:

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin held brief talks on the sidelines of D-day anniversary celebrations in Normandy, Hollande’s office said on Friday.

A White House official confirmed that an ‘informal’ meeting had taken place, saying it had lasted 10-15 minutes.

Russia was excluded from a G7 (formerly G8) summit in Brussels yesterday.

Reuters also reports a Kremlin source confirming Putin and Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko have spoken and called for a halt to bloodshed in eastern Ukraine.

Royals and world leaders are still arriving for the ceremony at Sword beach – it was due to start at 3pm, Normandy time, but has clearly overshot that. Queen Elizabeth II will be the last to arrive (BBC News also reports that she is the only dignitary to have eschewed an interpreter; she will listen to the ceremony in French).

My colleague Karen McVeigh in New York has been talking to a US veteran of D-day who was unable to make the journey today. She sends this report:

Charles Neighbour, of Iola, Kansas, was stationed in Devon, in Great Britain, in the run-up to Operation Overland. All of his training concentrated on the upcoming Normandy landing. They were told of the rows of German ‘pillboxes’ stationed along the coast, which they had to overcome. But the reality, said Neighbour, of the 29^th Division of E company, 116^th Infantry Regiment, was very different.

‘We really had no idea what we were facing,’ Neighbour, 89, told the Guardian. ‘When we landed, I almost felt like it wasn’t me. It’s very hard for me to put it into words. It was like I was a robot.’

In his book, One Man’s War, Neighbour described the scene before him on that day, 70 years ago: ‘As our boat touched sand and the ramp went down, I became a visitor to hell.’

It was chaos, he said. His unit, which crossed the channel in a British-operated French liner, the Ile De France, were first dropped in the wrong section of beach. Then, he was forced to take over a flame thrower after his partner was shot in the shoulder almost immediately.

‘He said, I can’t go on, so I took it,’ said Neighbour. ‘I carried a rifle in one hand and a flame thrower in the other. But the nozzle on it didn’t work and I never got to use it.’

Omaha Beach was the scene of the bloodiest fighting on D- day, as mortar and machine gun fire killed many US soldiers before they could even step off their landing boats. The US 1^st and 29^th divisions together lost 2,000 men at Omaha. One 170-man unit, from the Virginia National Guard’s Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, virtually ceased to exist as a fighting unit on 6 June 1944, and 90% were dead or wounded on Omaha.

Neighbour said that his group, who did not land with the rest of the company, did manage to meet up with the rest of the troops and managed to ‘neutralise the pill box’. They did not sustain nearly as many casualties. But out of a group of 30 men, he still lost five friends that day.

Neighbour returned to Normandy in 1994 and again in 2004 and was ‘overwhelmed’ by the reaction from the French.

‘It made all the difference in the world to me,’ he said. ‘They welcomed us with open arms.’

Neighbour, a retired mechanical engineer and father of four, now lives in a residential home in Royal Oak, Virginia. He said he is is too frail to return again, although he would like to. But he plans to attend a commemoration ceremony at the D-day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, with around 20 of his unit, of which there are between 30 and 40 active members. Some of them will receive the D-day medal.

‘It’s going to be a full day but we’re going to be there,’ he said.

A huge round of applause as German chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at Ouistreham. She is chatting with the veterans in the front row.

She is followed by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council.

Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, is next to arrive.

Most Canadian troops landed on the next beach along from Sword, at Juno.

The Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery has the unhappy distinction of holding the remains of nine sets of brothers, more than any other second world war cemetery.

A bold veteran while shaking hands with Hollande appeared to ask him about the meeting at lunchtime between Russia’s President Putin and the new president-elect of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. BBC News is reporting that a meeting did take place at the Chateau de Benouville earlier.

Poroshenko has now arrived at the ceremony, as per protocol (he’s the newest world leader here) and gets a warm round of applause.

He’s followed by Tony Abbott, prime minister of Australia.

British prime minister David Cameron has paid tribute to those involved in the D-day landings, following a service at Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy, marking the 70th anniversary of the landings:

French president Francois Hollande is arriving at the international ceremony at Ouistreham now, along with French prime minister Manuel Valls.

The French president is hosting this commemoration; he will be followed by other world leaders.

There are also around 6,000 veterans and local residents attending. Around half of the veterans here are from the UK, a quarter from the US, and the remainder from the rest of the world, including a number from Canada and Australia.

The New York Times reported the launch of the invasion on its front page of 6 June 1944:

The New York Times report relays that:

General Eisenhower told his forces that they were about to embark on a ‘great crusade’.

The eyes of the world are upon you, he said, and the ‘hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you’. The order, which reflected a full appreciation of the mighty task ahead and yet reflected the calm, sober confidence that permeates these headquarters, was distributed to assault elements after their embarkation.

It went on:

The news that has been so long and so eagerly awaited broke as war-weary Londoners were going to work. Hardly any of them knew what was happening, for there had been no disclosure of the news that the invasion had started in the British Broadcasting Corporation’s 7 o’clock broadcast.

The international ceremony at Ouistreham – Sword beach in the Normandy landings – begins shortly.

Fred Jarvis landed in Ouistreham, four days after D-day. He sends me this account of what he faced:

Arriving as reinforcements on D+4 meant that we did not encounter the dangers and horrors experienced by those who led the assault on D-day. Whatever dangers we might have encountered later – and in my case, they were not great – the only discomfort we suffered as we left the landing craft to reach the beach was to struggle in water up to our chests as we held our rifles above our heads to keep them dry.

By that time, the beach head was secure and we were able to march inland, near to the port of Ouistreham, until we found a spot where we could rest. Soaked to the skin, with the sun shining, we all decided it would be a good idea to strip to our underwear to dry off.

Within minutes an infuriated regimental sergeant major (and RSMs are not softspoken even at the best of times) rushed up and in language that is not fit to print – even in the Guardian – told us that we were inviting an enemy air attack and should get dressed forthwith, or words to that effect.

As good squaddies we complied and although my mates and I were to spend the following months, after shelling Caen for weeks, travelling through France, Belgium and Holland before ending up in Germany, we were never to hear the likes of that kind of language again.

The Manchester Guardian reported on 7 June 1944 that the weather had delayed plans for the invasion. Reporting from the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, our military correspondent reported:

It can now be said that the operation which has been carried out today was originally planned for yesterday.

It was postponed on account of the weather.

The report continues:

It can be said that in some ways the German defences so far have not in fact proved quite so formidable as the planners of the expedition had predicted.

The Allied naval and air forces have been magnificent.

My colleague Kim Willsher is at Sword beach and has been talking to some of the veterans there ahead of this afternoon’s international ceremony.

Thomas "Ted" Bootle, 90, from Oulton Broad, Suffolk, UK, landed with 398 company of the Royal Army Service Corps, attached to the 6th Arborne Division:

I came ashore in a five-ton army lorry. We sailed from Tilbury on a US ship and was transferred to a landing craft mid-Channel. The US crew dropped one of the other lorries and the driver was killed. They had to clear that out of the way before we could be transferred. I was directed to the wrong part of the beach and was told to drive at top speed to the right part and shoot anything that moved.

Joseph Nicolson, 88, from Selby, UK, was a naval seaman gunner on the landing craft:

I had lied to get into the Navy and was just 18 on D-day. We made quite a few trips back and forth. I remember clearly what happened. We didn’t come under so much fire because the troops got quickly inland, but there was the occasional plane dropping bombs on us. One lifted the stern of the ship out of the water.

I always feel very proud coming back here, and proud to have been part of the D-day landings. I feel humble as well because of all the French civilians that died. It was when we started taking the wounded back that it hit me. It was just like you see in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, only louder and longer. When we got to land, there were still bodies on the beach.

Denis Dayman, 89, from Birmingham, UK, was a private in the Shropshire Light Infantry:

By the end of the war there were only eight of us left. The others were either dead or wounded. I was wounded in the leg, later in August. I don’t think young people want to remember what happened all those years ago. I don’t think they’re interested. It’s wonderful to be here. Everyone is so proud of us, they treat us like gods. And after all, it’s important to remember.

Kenneth William Lucas, 92, from Leicester, UK, landed on Sword Beach two days after D-day:

We drove the lorry through the water and headed north to Belgium. I remember clearly parking by the side of the road and a German shell hitting a first aid post in the middle of the road killing four people. It is an emotional time. I come back for the fellas that got killed. I was lucky, I got away with it.

Roland Armitage, 89, from Ottawa, Canada, came ashore on Juno Beach on 18 June with the Royal Canadian Artillery:

We were supposed to be in Caen in three days; in fact we weren’t there until July 15. Those Germans were tough fighters. We were against the 12th Panzer division, who were Hitler Youth boys and trained to be ferocious fighters. You couldn’t make them give up.

I volunteered to go. We though Hitler was going to take the world and he was going to take England. We were loyal to England, we wanted a free world, and men are men. Everybody went. I never thought about being scared. I thought if anyone was going to die, it wouldn’t be me. I lost one of my ears, and my officer was killed, but I made it.

This is wonderful: news of D-day reaches New York – in pictures.

As my colleague Jason Deans reports, despite the restrictions on the media at the time (both in terms of speed and censorship), the BBC was able to offer "eye-witness reports" just hours after the landings began:

The BBC broadcast its first ‘eye-witness report from above the battlefield of France’ during its 1pm radio news, a recording sent back by an Air-Commodore Helmore from a plane that had returned from its mission that morning to bomb a railway bridge.

Helmore reported during the flight across the English Channel that it was busier ‘up here than Piccadilly Circus’ with the air ‘full of aircraft of all kinds going and coming’, while down below ‘I’ve just seen a great flock of our invasion fleet’.

The 1pm bulletin also carried reports from BBC correspondents including Frank Gillard ‘with troops in the South of England’, Robert Dunnett on an American ship, and Richard Dimbleby – father of Question Time presenter David – reporting the night before from an English airfield as aircraft carrying paratroops took off for France.

My colleague Caroline Davies sends this report from commemorations in Bayeux:

This was it, the final time. No more would Britain’s Normandy veterans walk in their hundreds through its white serried rows of headstones. Never again would they encircle en masse the Cross of Sacrifice, their standards dipped in respect.

Bayeux war cemetery, a British shine and last resting place for 3,935 whom age would never weary, provided a fitting backdrop to this emotive swan song.

They are in their 80s and 90s, now. Today was a last rally of the blue- blazered brigade as D-day passed into history. The Normandy Veterans’ Association will exist no more from November, laying up its standard as age defeats its ranks.

Those that could, stood with pride under a fierce sun. They may be wearier of leg, more stooped of shoulder than their younger selves. But no less resolute. For those that needed there was a discreet arm to lean on. Others paid their respects from wheelchairs, bars groaning with medals hanging from their chests.

A deafening flypast – two Spitfires, a Dakota and a Lancaster bomber – brought gasps and announced the arrival of the Queen. At 88, she is of this generation and they connect with her. So it seemed fitting she was present at this last hurrah in Bayeux, the first French town to be liberated from the Nazis.

In the cemetery Eddie Slater, national chairman of the Normandy Veterans Association, read the exhortation: ‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.’

‘We will remember them’ came back the chorus of elderly, but still enthusiastic, voices. Heads dipped during the two minutes’ silence; some eyes were closed.

The Queen was accompanied by Prince Philip, 92, himself a veteran of the second world war; Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, a clutch of Commonwealth leaders and a plethora of British politicians, including David Cameron, Nick Clegg Ed Miliband, and from Scotland and Northern Ireland Alex Salmond and Peter Robinson.

Earlier Cameron had joined a procession of veterans as they walked from the town’s cathedral to this commonwealth cemetery, led by a piper and accompanied by the catheral’s bells. The veterans were applauded by crowds lining the route, and Cameron spoke of his “sense of awe and gratitude” for what had passed so many decades ago.

The world leaders at the Chateau de Benouville are posing for their group photograph; I’ve grabbed this from the BBC, but we should have the official version shortly:

Reader Julie Ramsay has sent us her grandfather’s diary from D-day via Guardian Witness:

Today is the day. We had a meal at 2300 and I gave my men their final briefing at midnight.

0515. Day is breaking. The wind seems to be very strong for a landing.

1510. Landed on French soil. Pretty grim. Mines. Sniper. Bombs.

Barack Obama has now arrived at the Chateau de Benouville for lunch with the other heads of state: Merkel, Putin and the Queen among them. He’s brought a US veteran with him, which should help ensure that everyone is on their best behaviour.

Most of the British veterans are having their lunch in Bayeux, before they head to Ouistreham for this afternoon’s ceremonies.

Northern Ireland’s first minister Peter Robinson is in Normandy today, attending services in Bayeux cathedral, Bayeux cemetery and Sword Beach. He said of the men and women from Northern Ireland who played their part in the D-day landings:

We must never forget the bravery, courage and sacrifice of those thousands of soldiers who fought and for the many who ultimately gave their lives for all of us. It is right that those veterans are central to today’s commemorations.

Northern Ireland provided a staging platform for allied forces prior to the D-day landings.

We are all eternally grateful to the men and women of Northern Ireland who played their part in one of the most significant engagements in military history.

People have taken to Twitter to commemorate relatives involved in the D-day landings. Do share your memories of relatives in the comments or via GuardianWitness:

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Chateau de Benouville in Normandy for lunch with other leaders ahead of the ceremony at Sword beach.

My colleague Kim Willsher reports from Normandy:

Putin has just arrived at the Chateau de Bénouville for lunch with the other heads of state.

He was greeted on the red carpet by François Hollande who shook his hand, but it was not a warm welcome. Hollande has a habit of putting his hand on someone’s back to guide them, and he didn’t with Putin.

In this video, US president Barack Obama and French president François Hollande commemorate the dead and honour the living at the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, on Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings in the second world war.

You can read the report of Obama’s speech here and Hollande’s here.

At noon on 6 June 1944, British prime minister Winston Churchill announced to MPs that D-day had begun. But he took his time about it:

12.00hrs
London

Winston Churchill interrupts House of Commons business, and speaks for 15 minutes about the capture of Rome, the first Axis capital to fall to the Allies two days earlier, before announcing the invasion.

He says little about the success or failure of the day – it is too early to call – but tells a hushed House: ‘This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place.’

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

The news of the Normandy landings was first relayed to the British public by the BBC in a special midday bulletin, read by John Snagge:

"D-day has come. Early this morning the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler’s European fortress.

The first official news came just after half-past nine when Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force – usually called SHAEF from its initials – issued communiqué number one."

You can read – and hear – the full bulletin on the BBC site here.

A pair of Spitfires, painted in the black and white stripes of D-day aircraft, are taking part in a flypast over the Normandy beaches. Some 12,000 aircraft were in operation on D-day.

World leaders in Normandy are now meeting at the Chateau de Benouville, near Caen, for lunch, before this afternoon’s centrepiece ceremony at Sword beach. German chancellor Angela Merkel has just arrived and was greeted by French president Francois Hollande.

A D-day fact: Queen Elizabeth is the only one of the heads of state in Normandy today to have served during the second world war. She was a member of the auxiliary territorial service, the women’s branch of the British army, in which she was a junior commander.

The Manchester Guardian (that was us, then) reported that:

Manchester received the long-awaited news with tempered elation. There was no boisterous display.

Everywhere there was a ‘standing to’ at wireless receivers such as had no parallel since the first hours of the war or the anxious days of 1940.

Long queues formed to buy the evening papers as each edition was due to appear.

Veteran Edgar ‘Ron’ Minton remembers the invasion as he revisits the site 70 years on:

And Associated Press has this report on the speech by Barack Obama at the US cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer:

Seventy years after Allied troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, President Barack Obama returned Friday to this hallowed battleground and said "the tide was turned in that common struggle for freedom" on D-Day and now lives on in a new generation.

‘America’s claim, our commitment to liberty, to equality, to freedom, to the inherent dignity of every human being – that claim is written in blood on these beaches, and it will endure for eternity,’ Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery on a morning that dawned glorious and bright over the sacred site he called ‘democracy’s beachhead’.

Obama spoke from the Normandy American cemetery and memorial, where nearly 10,000 white marble tombstones sit on a bluff overlooking the site of the June 6 1944 battle’s most violent fighting at Omaha Beach. He described D-day’s violent scene in vivid terms, recalling that ‘by daybreak, blood soaked the water’ and ‘thousands of rounds bit into flesh and sand’.

We come to remember why America and our allies gave so much for the survival of liberty at its moment of maximum peril. And we come to tell the story of the men and women who did it, so that it remains seared into the memory of the future world.’

The president mentioned that his grandfather served in Patton’s Army and his grandmother was among the many women who went to work supporting the war effort back home, in her case on a B-29 bomber assembly line.

Obama also singled out from the audience Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, an Army Ranger who served 10 deployments and was severely wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Obama recognized Remsburg at the emotional high-point of his State of the Union address earlier this year, after first meeting him five years ago at the Normandy commemoration. The two reunited Friday as Obama met with veterans at Omaha Beach before his speech.

‘For in a time when it has never been more tempting to pursue narrow self-interest and slough off common endeavor, this generation of Americans, our men and women of war, have chosen to do their part as well,’ Obama said.

‘And someday, future generations, whether 70 or 700 years hence, will gather at places like this to honour them and to say that these were generations of men and women who proved once again that the United States of America is and will remain the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known.’

You can see a video of Obama’s speech here.

The Press Association has filed this report on the events of this morning:

British veterans of the D-day landings honoured their fallen comrades during a poignant service of remembrance in Normandy attended by the Queen. Surrounded by war graves, old soldiers, sailors and airmen gathered with senior members of the royal family and prime minister David Cameron in the town of Bayeux to pay their respects.

The event marked 70 years to the day that Allied troops stormed Normandy beaches in the largest amphibious assault in history, described by wartime prime minister Winston Churchill as ‘undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place’.

June 6, 1944 was the beginning of an 80-day campaign to liberate the region which involved three million troops and cost the lives of 250,000. Bayeux, a quiet French town close to the coast, was the first to be freed from Nazi control during the campaign.

The town’s military graveyard was a fitting place to stage the open-air service as it is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery of the second world war in France, with more than 4,000 burials.

In bright summer sunshine the service of hymns and prayers was staged with military clergy conducting proceedings. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, on a three-day state visit to France, were joined by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall. Cameron, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband were among the congregation for the open-air service at the cemetery, as was foreign secretary William Hague and Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott.

Moments after the Queen arrived a fly-past of historic aircraft – two Spitfires, a Dakota and a Lancaster bomber – roared overhead as they flew in formation.

At the start of the service the Reverend Patrick Irwin, the Royal British Legion Chaplain to Normandy, told the congregation:

Here in this cemetery we are reminded of the true cost of D-day whose 70th anniversary we mark today. We pay tribute to the dead and welcome enthusiastically the veterans for whose courage and devotion we are most grateful.

This is a British cemetery and most of the graves in this place are British but D-day involved many nations and many nations are represented here.

Here in this cemetery men from many nations lie together united in death, and together, united in gratitude, sorrow and respect, we honour their memory. May they rest in peace.

At this time on 6 June 1944, Hitler was just waking up:

11.00hrs
Berchtesgaden, southern Germany

Hitler wakes up. Staff at his mountain retreat had refused to rouse him when first reports of paratroop landings and a potential invasion came in through the night. When he finally does get up, he disregards the reports of an Allied invasion in Normandy.

He lunches with the new Hungarian prime minister, telling him: ‘The news could not be better … Now we have them [the Allied armies] where we can destroy them.’

Hitler’s behaviour during the day is critical: only he has authority to launch the Panzer divisions held in strategic reserve against the landing beaches.

A row between Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of German forces in the west, about the location of the reserves, is resolved by Hitler with a fudge: he will control the Panzer reserves, and they can go into action only on his command. In the early, critical hours of D-Day, no command is sent to the 21st Panzer Division waiting around Caen with engines running.

The Allied deception plan has worked so well that Hitler and many senior German commanders are convinced the main invasion will come in the Pas de Calais. The Panzers remain idle and more than half a million German soldiers wait in the Calais area to repulse what Hitler believes will be the real invasion.

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

About 100 Canadian veterans are in Normandy today, to commemorate Canada’s role in the landings. Canadian troops landed on Juno beach on 6 June 1944; about 350 of them died that day.

Reader George Sanders sent us this story of his father’s role at Juno:

You can share stories and photographs with us via Guardian Witness.

In Bayeux, the Queen is talking to veterans and those who care for the cemetery, including the head gardeners. The gardeners ensure that at any time of the year, there are always flowers blooming.

Barack Obama has just ended his (very powerful) speech and there is a moment’s silence at the US cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, before he and President Hollande lay wreaths for the fallen, followed by a 21-gun salute.

Many personal stories have been submitted by our readers through Guardian Witness. If you have photographs or stories, you can share them on our Guardian Witness D-day assignment here.

Here is a selection of those we’ve been sent so far:

In the Commonwealth war cemetery at Bayeux, wreaths are being laid for the fallen. Prince Charles has laid one, and now David Cameron, the UK prime minister; Tony Abbott, the Australian PM; and Jerry Mateparae, governor-general of New Zealand, are taking their turn.

Back home, says Obama "an army of women, including my grandmother, rolled up their sleeves to build an arsenal for democracy".

At Omaha beach, says Obama:

Blood soaked the water. Bombs broke the sky. Hell’s beach earned its name.

He pays tributes to the troops from other nations involved, including the UK and Canada.

We are not here just to celebrate victory, Obama says.

We come to tell the story of the men and women who did it, so it remains seared into the memory of the future world.

We tell this story for the old soldiers who pull themselves a little straighter today for those who never made it home.

Obama thanks the people of France. They have taken care of the fallen troops whose tombs are here, he says: "We are forever grateful."

Obama says:

More than 150,000 souls set off to this slither of sand which held not just the course of a war, but the course of history.

He is "humbled" by the presence of veterans here today, leading a lengthy round of applause.

Barack Obama is speaking now at Colleville-sur-Mer of the events leading up to 6 June 1944:

If prayers were made of sounds, the noise over England that night would have deafened the world.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have just arrived at Bayeux for the ceremony at the war cemetery there.

Hollande says he was born in Normandy, in Rouen. Obama, he adds, was born in Hawaii, which also saw suffering during the war. This should never be forgotten, he says.

Normandy, which is hosting the whole world … today we are united here.

Hollande says 6 June 1944 was the most important day in the second world war.

He mentions the names of some of the men lost: a father and son, one killed in Normandy, one in Italy; brothers who are buried in the Normandy cemetery.

Hollande says every man who set foot on Omaha beach on 6 June was a hero.

They ran, armed with courage, towards the lines of the enemy.

More than 20,000 Americans paid with their lives here in Normandy.

They were your parents, your brothers, your friends.

They were our liberators.

The French-US ceremony at Colleville-sur-Mer has begun.

President Francois Hollande is speaking.

Today we commemorate a memorable date in our history, where our two peoples merged in the same fight … the battle of liberty.

6 June 1944 was a horrendous battlefield. That is what we try to remember here, 70 years later.

On that morning, everything started on the wrong footing. On Omaha beach, the artillery missed its targets. The tanks that should have supported the infantry drowned.

Scores of them were killed, massacred. They were faced with a sea of blood.

[But] in democracies, a great ideal gives rise to great bravery.

A moving story from reader Helen Dodd who has commented below – her grandfather was at the service at Bayeux cathedral this morning:

Obama and Hollande are now arriving for the ceremony at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.

The Queen has published a message in the official D-Day brochure:

I am very pleased to be able to join veterans here in Normandy to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings.

On June 6 1944, after months of planning and training, the largest amphibious assault in history was launched to secure freedom in Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of servicemen made the journey across the Channel by sea and air, and through their brave actions and dogged determination, established a vital foothold in occupied Europe.

This immense and heroic endeavour brought the end of the second world war within reach.

I am sure that these commemorations will provide veterans of the conflict and their families gathered here in France, along with their hosts, the people of Normandy, with an opportunity to reflect on their experiences and the incredible sacrifices that were made.

The helicopter of French president Francois Hollande has also now arrived at Colleville-sur-Mer.

Barack Obama‘s helicopter, Marine One, has just landed in Colleville-sur-Mer, where the president will give a speech as part of the D-day commemorations.

Obama and the French president, Francois Hollande, will attend a ceremony at the cemetery for the US war dead. Some 9,387 American troops are buried at the cemetery close to Omaha beach.

A number of US veterans who took part in the Normandy landings have also travelled to France today.

At 9.30am BST on 6 June 1944 came the first official confirmation of the Normandy beach landings, issued by General Dwight D Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe:

Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.

More from my colleague Caroline Davies at the Bayeux war cemetery:

Among those at Bayeux waiting for the dignitaries is Australian Michael Pirrie, here to honour his uncle Richard Pirrie, a footballer from Melbourne, who died on his 24^th birthday on Juno beach.

He was clutching a black and white photograph of his uncle, to show Australian prime minister Tony Abbott.

Pirrie, 56, who now lives in London, said: ‘It is incredibly humbling to be here.’

His uncle, who served with the Australian Navy, was credited with saving many life on Juno beach before his was claimed by German artillery on D-day.

‘He was fighting with the British. He was aboard the Invicta, which was a British, Canadian ship. Richard’s job was to lead the invasion force in a small spotter boat. He was to get as close to the shore as he could to identify the Nazis on the cliffs and radio back to the ships so they could get their guns on them and blast them to provide cover,’ he said.

‘He got so close to Juno he was able to radio back great information, before he was himself killed, which was extremely helpful and which meant the beach had the lowest casualty rate.’

He said his uncle, who was a well known footballer in Melbourne who volunteered to fight, was mentioned in dispatches for his actions on D-day.

‘Just being here is an emotional experience,’ he said surveying the graves. The body of his uncle was never found.

‘These were the men who had willingly entered a situation they knew they would have to die for, and sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the world and their families. I don’t think anybody has put it as well as Bill Clinton when he said: We are the children of their sacrifice.’

A ceremony is taking place now in Arromanches, a joint French-Dutch service to commemorate the events of 70 years ago. The Royal Netherlands Motorised Infantry Brigade was a small unit that took part in the Battle of Normandy in 1944.

Some new pictures of the ceremony at Bayeux Cathedral, which has just ended:

President Barack Obama has just landed in Caen, Normandy.

He is heading to Colleville-sur-Mer, where he will give a speech later.

My colleague Caroline Davies is in Bayeux this morning. She sends this report:

At the Bayeux war cemetery, which is principally a British shrine, veterans are gathering ahead of a service of remembrance which will be attended by the Queen and prime minister David Cameron.

This is one of the most emotional events for many of the veterans as they parade past the neat rows of 3,935 uniform white headstones. A stone plaque commemorates the 1,807 British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors and airmen whose bodies were never found.

Before the ceremony Peter Smoothy, 89, walked among the headstones, carrying two crosses. With tears in his eyes, he said: ‘Coming here, to this place, it always affects me straight away. My mind is always on those that never came home.’

He had been asked to place the crosses by the daughter of one of those resting here. She never knew her father, who was killed on D-day on Sword Beach. ‘She was born soon after. It was something I was happy to do,’ said Smoothy, from Herne Bay, Kent, who served with the Royal Navy aboard LST215 – one of the many landing craft used to ferry soldiers to the beach and later bring back German prisoners of war. He landed on Juno, which was stormed by Canadian troops.

‘Just being here, it is very dear to me,’ he said, wiping away tears.

The Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will attend the service, which is due to start at around 11.30am following the formal service in Bayeux cathedral. They will join with veterans making the short walk from the cathedral to the cemetery, and other heads of state, including Tony Abbott, the prime minister of Australia.

Traditionally the veterans march through the cemetery behind their standards and encircle the Cross of Sacrifice.

My colleague Philip Oltermann reports from Berlin that, although chancellor Angela Merkel will attend commemorations in Normandy today, the 70th anniversary of D-day " is unlikely to register much with the wider public".

Merkel will today visit the Commonwealth cemetery of Ranville, where 133 German soldiers were laid to rest.

Philip reports:

Few other countries have actively engaged as much with the crimes of their past as the second world war‘s chief aggressor, but in a year in which the first world war, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler are commemorated, D-day has inevitably been marginalised.

Even without other anniversaries to compete against, the Normandy landings fail to have the same symbolic resonance in Germany as they have in Anglo-American memory.

According to the military historian Peter Lieb, whose book on the landings was published this month, the main reason for this is the overpowering role in German memory played by the eastern front: ‘Between 1940 and 1943, all eyes in Germany were on the Soviet Union,’ Lieb said.

Even on the day, it didn’t feel like a turning point: Adolf Hitler reportedly enjoyed a lie-in at his holiday home in Berghof, and when he heard the news at 10am, he welcomed it, announcing that he was ‘absolutely certain’ the Wehrmacht would smash the enemy.

The dedication of the new cathedral bell at Bayeux is taking place now. Prince Charles, on behalf of the Queen, tells the Archbishop of Paris, who is making the blessing, that the bell is to be named "Thérèse Benedicte".

The bell is blessed in French, English and German.

70 years ago at this moment:

08.45hrs
The English channel

From his command HQ on the battleship USS Augusta, General Omar Bradley, commander of the US landing forces, contemplates abandoning the disaster of Omaha beach. Supporting waves of US troops were about to be ordered to land on other beaches, leaving a vast hole in the centre of the invasion.

However, as he is considering this radical step, US destroyers risk beaching themselves by going close inshore to fire their 5-inch guns directly on to the German gun positions.

And on the beach, Brigadier General Norman Cota rallies his men, who have got as far as the sea wall, and encourages them to begin the assault that at last overwhelms the German defences. Cota wins a Distinguished Service Cross for getting his men to advance.

You can read the full hour-by-hour report here.

Thanks to readers who are contributing comments below and sharing their stories of D-day:

The service pays "special tribute" to those who took part in the Normandy landings and are still living. A number of them are in the cathedral this morning. The congregation is hearing this address to the veterans:

that private moment when an elderly serviceman stands beside the grave of a fallen comrade …

You are witness to the high price that had to be paid to rid this continent of a tragic evil.

We owe you … a momentous thank you.

The service taking place now in the cathedral at Bayeux is one of the two UK-French national ceremonies of commemoration for the 70th anniversary of D-day.

The Royal British Legion, which has organised the ceremony, says in the congregation are "veterans and the people of Bayeux as well as senior UK, Australian, New Zealand, French and European allied political representatives".

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are also there.

The service includes the blessing of a new cathedral bell to mark the 70th anniversary of D-day. The Queen is to be one of the bell’s "godparents".

The priest leading the prayers at Bayeux cathedral – apologies, I don’t have his name – asks the congregation to remember also the German soldiers "swept up" in the war.

The Royal British Legion service at the cathedral at Bayeux is beginning. Many veterans from many different countries are in attendance, along with the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cambridge, and politicians including David Cameron, French prime minister Manuel Valls and Australian prime minister Tony Abbott.

My colleague Richard Norton-Taylor was born on D-day, in the afternoon of 6 June 1944. He has written this account:

My mother heard about the Normandy landings on the radio just before going into labour. She remembered seeing ‘all the planes flying very low overhead with special Allied markings on the wings’.

‘I was worried as the matron kept coming in to inquire what I was going to call my son,’ my mother told me. ‘I thought that something must be wrong with the baby – but the press had been calling to see if any boys had been born that day, and was I going to christen him Bernard [after Montgomery] or Dwight [after Eisenhower]?’ Monty might have been even worse.

As my colleague Jason Deans reports, the BBC’s 8am news bulletin on 6 June 1944 carried no confirmation of the D-day landings that had begun an hour-and-half earlier – the official nod came later in the morning – but did warn that "a new phase in the Allied air offensive" had begun.

It quoted German reports that "Allied airborne troops have been landed" and naval forces were "engaged with Allied landing-craft".

This morning at 8am Radio 4 is beginning to rerun its broadcasts of the BBC’s original 1944 news reports, starting with actor Benedict Cumberbatch reading the bulletin during the Today programme in a few minutes’ time. The tribute runs until Sunday evening; all the bulletins, along with some original recordings, can be heard here.

This hour-by-hour retelling of the events of 6 June 1944 – put together as part of the Guardian and Observer’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary in 2004 – is worth a read. Here’s what it has to say about what was happening at this time, 70 years ago:

07.30hrs
Gold, Juno and Sword beaches, Normandy

H-Hour on the British and Canadian beaches, as the low tide is one hour later further east. The British use their armour far more effectively than the Americans, with many floating tanks coming ashore to provide vital assistance to the infantry.

On Gold beach there is stiff resistance around the seaside town of Le Hamel, but this is overcome. British troops advance three miles inland by the end of the day to the edge of Bayeux, with its tapestry of the Norman invasion of England. On Sword beach flail tanks clear routes through minefields for the infantry. Lord Lovat and his commando brigade lands to the sound of bagpipes and capture Ouistreham, then march inland and, with the pipes still playing, link up with the tiny force at Pegasus Bridge.

On Juno beach the Canadians have a much tougher time with heavy German shelling of their landing craft – 20 out of 24 in the first wave are lost. It takes the Canadians three hours’ bitter fighting to capture the town of St-Aubin-sur-Mer and crush resistance.

UK prime minister David Cameron is in France for the commemorations and has this to say about the continuing importance of the D-day landings:

As we gather on the beaches of Normandy to remember the extraordinary sacrifices made for peace, there has never been a more important time to underline our belief in collective defence.

Through the searing experiences of moments like D-day, we learnt how much more we could achieve by working together as allies than by fighting alone.

The Nato alliance was born out of this commitment to increase our collective security and to ensure that the common cause we found through shared hardship would prevent conflict on this scale threatening our world again.

Just as British and French soldiers fought for victory against a common enemy on the beaches of Normandy, today France and the UK stand shoulder to shoulder against the threats of the modern world. We remain united against international terrorism and extremism – and in recent times our armed forces have served together in Afghanistan, Libya, Mali and elsewhere around the world.

Cameron said the "shared hardship" of the second world war had "forged our unique relationship and created a shared determination to work together for a safer, more prosperous future for us all":

That future is why so many of our servicemen gave their lives – and protecting the peace they fought for is the greatest way we can honour those who fell.

I’ve taken the quotes from the Press Association.

Guardian Witness has been compiling first-person accounts of D-day from those who were there or who were involved in the operation. You can read a collection of those stories here.

Reader Phill Burrows sent this story about his father who landed on D-day near Pegasus bridge. It was the first time he’d ever left Northern Ireland:

Readers are very welcome to share their stories with Guardian Witness here.

Around 3,000 Australians fought in support of the D-day landings; 18 were killed. My colleague Richard Nelsson sends me these examples of how Australian newspapers reported the start of the "vast sea and air operation".

The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Airborne troops … had been been landed behind the enemy’s lines on a scale far larger than ever before seen, with great accuracy and extremely little loss.

The Argus, published in Melbourne, reported on the day after the landings began:

Massed airborne landings in France have already been successfully effected … Fire from German shore batteries had already been largely quelled. Obstacles constructed in the sea had not been as difficult as expected.

The day’s commemorations in Normandy have already begun.

At midnight there was a vigil at the Pegasus Bridge, marking the first assault of the D-day invasion when airborne Allied soldiers landed in the dead of night 70 years ago.

At 12.16am on 6 June 1944 a team of six Horsa gliders carrying 181 men from the Glider Pilot Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, landed silently to capture the strategically vital bridge and another nearby, paving the way for soldiers landing on the Normandy beaches to move inland and reinforce their airborne colleagues.

There has been a wealth of coverage leading up to the anniversary; it has been hard to pluck out highlights, but here are some of the best from the Guardian this week.

• This interactive, showing D-day landing scenes in 1944 and the present day.

• Veterans of D-day revisit the places where they fought: in pictures.

• Helen Pidd met Harold Checketts, the former naval meteorologist whose weather forecasts by determined the timing of the Normandy landings.

• Kim Willsher heard vivid testimonies from veterans at Pegasus Bridge. Robert Sullivan, 91, of 3 Para Squadron told her:

Like many others, I missed the landing area. Fortunately I landed. Many of the others drowned. We had to make our way to the bridge. I got there at 9am and it had been partially destroyed, but not completely. So we blew it up.

Unlike my colleagues, I had the chance to live my life, have my family, and they did not. That’s the main thing I think.

• Caroline Davies sent this moving report from Normandy yesterday, as she visited Sword Beach with veterans including Gordon Smith, 90:

Those poor kids, running up the beach. Just 18- or 19-year-olds …

We did what we did, what we had to do. This is the final time for me. I am not coming back any more. It’s just too much.

My colleague Caroline Davies describes the ceremonies and tributes we will see today:

Friday’s international ceremony is at Sword, the most eastern of the five beaches, and assaulted by the 3rd British Infantry Division with some 29,000 men landing there. Its location serves as a fitting tribute not just to the 156,000 men who made up the Allied invasion force, but also the 177 Free France commandos who took part in ground operations on D-day alongside the British.

The sacrifices made by the French, up to 20,000 civilians killed mainly as a result of allied bombing, are to be recognised with a national memorial service at the Caen memorial on Friday morning.

President Obama will join French president François Hollande at a service later in the morning at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. US forces bore the brunt of allied casualties on that day. Of the estimated 4,500 who died, some 2,500 were US personnel. Casualty figures on cliff-fringed "Bloody" Omaha, where difficult terrain allowed German machine gun fire to tear into troops, were higher than on any other beach. A huge dawn gathering on Omaha beach is planned.

Many of the British veterans will visit Bayeux, known as the British shrine, for a Royal British Legion service at midday on Friday at the cathedral followed by an service of remembrance at the war graves cemetery where 4,144 second world war soldiers from the Commonwealth are buried.

The Bayeux Memorial bears the names of 1,800 men from Commonwealth land forces who died during intense fighting during the advance into Normandy and have no known grave. The Prince of Wales will watch a short parade of veterans, joined by Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, who will be accompanied by seven Australian D-day veterans. Some 3,000 Australians fought in support of the D-day landings, with 18 killed.

Shortly before sunset, the Normandy Veterans Association will perform its final parade at Arromanches on Gold beach, where, on 6 June 1944, nearly 25,000 men from the British 50th division landed.

Elsewhere, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper will pay tribute to the 21,000 Canadian troops who secured a heavily-defended Juno at a service nearby, accompanied by five veterans invited as his guests.

Nine veterans have officially been invited to attend the commemorations from New Zealand.

Welcome to rolling coverage of commemorations to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings.

My colleagues Caroline Davies and Kim Willsher are in France throughout the day, and this blog will draw together their reports with coverage of commemorations taking place around the world.

The first Allied airborne troops began landing in France shortly after midnight on 6 June 1944, with the main assault on the Normandy beaches beginning at 6.30am.

Most of the men who landed on the beaches were from the UK, the US and Canada, but troops from across the world took part in the ongoing Battle of Normandy: from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

Some 4,413 Allied troops are thought to have died on D-day; German casualties numbered between 4,000 and 9,000 dead, injured or missing.

You can see how the Manchester Guardian – as we were then – reported the Allied invasion in the newspaper of 7 June 1944 below: