A dwindling band of war heroes who fought during the Normandy landings 69 years ago were yesterday joined by widows and family members as they laid wreaths and crosses at a quiet and dignified ceremony of remembrance at the war memorial in Kirkcaldy.
There are now just five surviving members of the Kingdom and Angus branch of the Normandy Veterans Association.
Yesterday, four of those veterans ex-Royal Marine John McGhee; 5th battalion Seaforth Highlander Jim Younie; 5th battalion Black Watch Douglas Denwette and John Donnelly, who served with the 7th Armoured Tank Corps paid tribute to the estimated 10,000 Allied soldiers who perished on the Normandy beaches.
A fifth member of the association Charlie Munro of Leven, who served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) was unable to attend.
The Normandy landings, code-named Operation Neptune, were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War.
The landings commenced on Tuesday June 6 1944 (D-Day) and paved the way for the eventual victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Mr McGhee, 89, of Cowdenbeath, who bombarded the sands with a landing craft gun on D-Day, said: “This is the one day on the calendar for us apart from Remembrance Day on November 11 of course.
“We think of those who perished, of those we left behind.”
Mr Younie, 93, fought with the infantry division 51st Highland Division at Alamein, Sicily and Normandy, landing in France on June 7.
He said: “My landing in Normandy was simpler than my landing in Sicily. In Sicily, I landed in four feet of water and in Normandy I landed in three feet of water!
“We are history now but my hope is that the children of the future will remember us and that what we did was very important for the world in general.”
Among those attending the ceremony at Kirkcaldy War Memorial was local man David Deas, who played a poignant role in the event for the second time in memory of his late father, also David, who died at Normandy on June 8 1944, while serving on board HMS Minster, which was lost during the landings.
Mr Deas only discovered last year that a new Normandy commemorative stone had been placed in front of Kirkcaldy Galleries and, after being traced through The Courier last year, has since had several meetings with members of the Kingdom and Angus branch of the Normandy Veterans Association.