D-Day commemorated with Tommy silhouettes

Veterans gathered to see 80 Tommy silhouettes etched onto a beach in Broadstairs and pay their tributes to the fallen to commemorate D-Day.

The temporary installation at Stone Bay represents the soldiers, known as 'Tommies', who fought in World War Two.

6 June will mark the 80th anniversary since the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, the largest amphibious invasion in military history.

Marcus Jones from the Royal British Legion Industries, who was part of the team creating the silhouettes, said the drawings being washed away by the tide was a 'poignant moment' as the soldiers were 'gone but not forgotten'.

• What were the D-Day landings?

Pete Gower joined the Ordance Corps when he was 18

Veteran Pete Gower's father, Arthur, landed on the Normandy beaches in 1944 but didn't speak of his service in the Sussex Regiment until Pete experienced his own horrors.

Pete said: "He had scars from barbed wire on his body, and I kept on at him to tell me how he got them, and what he did in the war.

"For years he didn’t talk to me, but one day he turned round and said, ‘You’re in the Army now I’ll tell you’."

Pete said his father told him men were "throwing up" in the landing crafts and when the ramp lowered onto Sword beach "men dropped as bullets showered them".

Veteran Darren Riley served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia with the Light Infantry

Veteran Darren Riley said: "D-Day should really be remembered always because that final push for our freedom has ensured that we can live free lives.

"It will be an emotional morning as we commemorate what my regiment did during the Second World War."

He explained how the installation in Broadstairs is "very symbolic" for how the soldiers left their shore in Kent to fight for freedom.

Matthew Whitehouse and Vicky McLennan were in attendance at Broadstairs

Matthew Whitehouse, an Afghanistan veteran, received the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service.

He said: "We’re remembering the war veterans from the past and the present."

Vicky McLennan served as a combat medical technician in The Royal Army Medical Corp in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq.

She was medically discharged from the army with PTSD and went to live on the RBLI village in Aylesford.

"Help was always there and you've for that support network around you, a bit like being in the army really."

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