PARIS — Veterans of the Normandy landings are gathering in advance of the commemoration of D-Day on Sunday, when the Allies landed in France to fight Nazi Germany.

This year only a few veterans of the D-Day landings have traveled to Normandy to honor their fallen comrades on June 6. A new memorial to the British veterans who died has been put in place.

Its pillars are engraved with the names of the 22,442 British men and women who died in the landings and in the Battle of Normandy that followed in 1944.

The new one also pays tribute to the 20,000 or so French civilians who died as their country was being liberated from the Germans.

The UK had been the only country involved in D-Day not to have its own memorial in Normandy.

One US army veteran who was looking forward to remembrance day on Sunday said the locals do not forget the sacrifice he and his fellow soldiers made.

"In France the people remember these men, they hold them close to their heart and they remember what they did for them. And I don't think the French people will ever forget," Charles Norman Shay said.

Each year there is also some fun to be had as a parade of vintage military cars passes by, but sadly last year the parade had to be canceled because of the pandemic.

"We missed it a lot, that's just fun, happiness, and also being able to pay tribute to all the veterans. That's the main goal," Pascal Leclerc from the Remember Omaha Beach '44 Association said, as he sat in an American World War Two jeep.

77 years later D-Day still has enormous historical significance: not only it was it the largest seaborne invasion in history, it also marked the beginning of the end of World War Two. — Euronews