Thousands of people are preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings at a series of events in the UK and France this week.
Members of the Royal family, senior politicians and hundreds of veterans are set to attend ceremonies to remember the largest seaborne invasion in military history, and one of the most important events of World War Two.
More than 200 veterans boarded a cruise ship on Sunday night charted by the Royal British Legion to attend the events, while others are descending en masse on Portsmouth and the French region of Normandy.
Enthusiasts have begun reenactments on Normandy's beaches, dressing up in 1940s uniform and driving military vehicles through the villages and towns that still bear the scars of the operation on June 6 1944 which saw thousands of soldiers and and civilians killed.
Other D-Day devotees have set off from across the UK, America and Europe accompanied by jeeps, US Army ambulances, and other era-specific equipment.
“It will be a very big gathering to mark such a special anniversary,” said Ed Jones, a military vehicle enthusiast from the market town of Highbridge, Somerset.
He told local news outlet Burnham-On-Sea.com, that he and his friends would be travelling with seven World War Two US Army vehicles from Portsmouth to Normandy to celebrate alongside “1,800 other army vehicle enthusiasts” on the French beaches.
Outside France, key ceremonies will include the UK's national commemoration event on Wednesday, which the Queen will attend with US president Donald Trump, in recognition of the allied troops’ combined sacrifice.
Representatives from other allied countries, as well as Germany are expected to attend the event at the Portsmouth Naval Memorial involving 4,000 military personnel, 11 Royal Naval vessels and 26 RAF aircraft.
Later in the afternoon, veterans Harry Read, 95, and John Hutton, 94, will parachute into Normandy in honour of comrades they lost when they first made the descent 75 years ago.
They will descend onto fields at Sannerville – the drop zone for the 8th Midlands Parachute Battalion during D-Day – alongside around 280 paratroopers.
Mr Read, a 20-year-old wireless operator with the Royal Signals at the time of the landings, said: "I will enjoy the jump.
"It might be a little bit tricky, but I'm willing to have a go. But also in my heart I will be thinking of my mates.
"I have lived one of the most fulfilled lives that it's possible for a person to live and they haven't."
Mr Hutton - known by his friends as Jock - was 19 when he served in the 13th Lancashire Parachute Battalion. The experienced parachutist is not at all fazed by the prospect and said there was "nothing strange" about the task.
Theresa May will make one of her final official appearances as the British Prime Minister during the D-Day commemoration events, beginning her tour on Thursday morning at a special inauguration ceremony.
The event at the British Normandy Memorial site will mark the unveiling of a sculpture overlooking Normandy’s Gold beach, which is being built to honour those who died during the Battle of Normandy between the D-Day landings and August 31 1944.
The acting Prime Minister will then join the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall for a service of remembrance at Bayeux Cathedral, followed by a wreath laying service at the the Bayeux War Cemetery - the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission site of the Second World War in France.
The D-Day landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, began the liberation of German-occupied France from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
