PICTORIAL – D-DAY@70

World leaders are joining hundreds of veterans in Normandy to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings

Heads of state will meet at Ouistreham, one of the five beaches where Allied troops landed on 6 June 1944.

French President Francois Hollande will give a speech followed by US President Barack Obama. The Queen and Russian President Vladimir Putin will also go.

There will be a re-enactment of the landings, which were the start of the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

The day’s commemorations began at midnight with a vigil at Pegasus Bridge near Ouistreham, marking the first assault of the D-Day invasion when British soldiers began the first Allied action of the campaign.