D-Day 65th anniversary

In June 1944 thousands of Allied forces left the South Coast of England to begin theliberation of Nazi-occupied Europe. 

Sixty five years on, BBC Radio Solent remembers the achievement and sacrifice of one of the biggest military campaigns ever mounted.

Reporter Jo Palmer travelled with a group of D-Day veterans from the New Forest and East Dorset as they made their emotional return to Northern France to mark the anniversary and remember fallen colleagues.

While in Caen, Jo spoke to D-Day veterans Ted Thuston from Highcliffe and Burt Lucas from Wimborne before the main ceremony in Arramonches.

Ted Thuston of the 15th Scottish Division explained the long term effects of the D-Day campaign: "It stayed with me for two years, night and day. You'd go to bed and re-run all the battles in your head."

And Vic Dent from Christchurch described how it felt to be back in Northern France for the D-Day commemorations.

"In one respect it's thrilling but it's also unrecognisable. Everything is so different but you don't forget [what you saw].

"All four of my closest mates were killed."

Meanwhile, on the 'home front', BBC Radio Solent's Dorset reporter Harry Crawford was at a special D-Day picnic at Nothe Fort in Weymouth, featuring vintage military vehicles displays, genuine equipment and costumed re-enactors. 

Rob Guy, collector of radio equipment and jeeps, talks about the use of then-new telecoms equipment used in WWII.

Carol Hodges, Radio Operator of WWII Western Battlefront Group, displays radios from the wars, and explains the essential role radio played in the planning of D-Day and WWII as a whole.

Over at Studland Beach, which was the scene for a full scale D-Day rehearsal called Exercise Smash in April 1944, a day of special events was held.

It saw landing crafts in the waters off the beach, and visitors dressing in period military costumes, as seen in these photos sent in by Patricia Beale from Chandler's Ford in Hampshire.

Patricia tells us: "Unfortunately the landing craft was unable to reach the shore due to bad weather but a good time was had by all."

Also on Saturday, more than 200 soldiers and civilians arrived in northern France after running 65 miles (105km) from a Dorset airbase to commemorate D-Day.

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