IN the early hours of June 6, 1944, at 20 minutes past midnight to be precise, six gliders swooped from the dark skies above Northern France and crash-landed in fields near Caen.

Out of them leapt men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

On a mission to destroy Pegasus Bridge over Caen canal, they were the very tip of an invasion spear designed to drive right through the heart of the Nazi empire.

Within 30 minutes the Ox and Bucks were joined on French soil by 750 men of the 9th Parachute Battalion, black figures who dropped silently through the chill air.

The longest day of the Second World War had begun.

As darkness turned to a streaky summer dawn the frontal attack, Operation Overlord - better known today as the D-Day Landings - swung into operation.

It was the greatest seaborne military action ever launched. Wave upon wave of Allied troops, 156,000 in all plus their armoury, crossed the English Channel and hit back with indomitable courage at Adolf Hitler's dream of European domination.

Sixty years later, on June 6, 2004, 10,000 British Normandy veterans, forever Brothers in Arms, will march on the sands and through the streets of the French seaside towns to pay their respects to the thousands of young men in Operation Overlord who never made it home.

At rows of white gravestones in cemeteries scattered throughout the countryside they will once again picture the smiles on the faces of lost comrades and no doubt shed a tear or two.

The anniversary will be the last time so large a number of veterans, now mostly in their 80s and 90s, will be able to pay their respects.

Among those gathering for the celebrations will be a party of 12 British Legion members from Droitwich.

Their trip has been organised by the chairman of the branch's women's section, Mrs Hazel Gandy as a thank you, to Normandy veteran Roy Hewlett, who organised the Legion's Poppy Day collection in the town for many years.

"Roy was in the thick of things on D-Day and we thought it would be a fitting tribute for all his work for the British Legion to take him to this unique occasion," said Mrs Gandy.

"It will probably be very moving for him."

As it certainly will be for millions of the rest of us.