Hello and welcome to Newsa from the BBC World Service we're coming to you live from

London I'm James Menendez. The eagle plays the last post at a ceremony in Northern France to mark 80 years since

D-Day in the early hours of the 6th of June 1944, a vast armada of ships and landing craft

carrying 130,000 Allied troops from the US, Canada, Britain, the Commonwealth and other

allies moved in towards the beaches of Normandy.

Before them, more than 20,000 airborne soldiers had already been parachuted into enemy territory.

This invasion, the largest seaborne invasion in history, represented the start

of the operation to wrestle control of Northern Europe from the Nazis, a pivotal moment in the

war, and one that came with a heavy cost about 4.5,000

Allied soldiers were killed on D-Day. This reading today of Lawrence Binion's

owed of remembrance is a tribute to the casualties of war.

They should grow not old as we who are left go old.

Age shall not wearism, nor the years contend.

At the going down of the song and in the morning,

we will remember them.

Let's talk to the BBC's Europe editor Katia Adler who's at Omaha Beach. That was the

co-name for one of the beaches involved in D-Day in Norman D. And Kager just

give us a sense of what's been going on along that coast.

Well today of course we've got ceremonies held, official day ceremonies held by a number of

countries this morning, the Canadians, the British, the US ceremony at the military cemetery has just concluded and

within half an hour or so we'll have the international commemorationmony and there you'll have about 25 heads of state, heads of government

and members of various Europe's royal families including the Prince of Wales and for international

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