D Day Veteran recalls the invasion on the 70th anniversary

Friday the 6th of June marks the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings….

The largest sea borne invasion in history saw British, America and other allied soldiers begin an operation to invade German-occupied Western Europe in 1944. The Normandy landings had been in the planning stages for a year. The bloody battles that ensued saw the allies retaking occupied France from Nazi troops and contributing to the end of the Second World War a year later.

World leaders including US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin will joint European leaders, royalty and of course veterans of the conflict for a series of commemorations. Our reporter Catherine Drew caught up with one of the veterans who is heading to Normandy for the first time since landing there on D Day.

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92 year old Alex Reith was a staff sergeant in the British army's glider pilot regiment. He joined the army at the beginning of the Second World war, working as a bomb disposal officer before switching because he thought becoming a glider pilot would be more exciting.

Enroute to Normandy from his home in South Africa, the British former pilot dropped into the Army's museum of Flying for a trip down memory lane…. the museum is home to glider planes used to transport men and equipment into the fighting zones during the second world war.

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Reith took part in the D Day operation which saw 156 thousand American, british canadian and other allied troops landing along a 50 mile stretch of normandy coast….in a seaborne assault which was supported by an aerial bombardment.

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"This was a wonderful experience, I can see it now, spread before me from about 1500 feet was this vast armada never been seen before and it consisted of every type of boat you can imagine event battleships were in it to pound the enemy when they got near the coast, it was wonderful. There was activity all around, it was a one-off, never to be forgotten experience.

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Reith piloted a glider with an army gun, a jeep and a small number of troops into Normandy.

He helped other soldiers secure the area and then his orders were to return to England, so he could be used in other glider missions. He and other glider pilots made their way back to the beaches where the thousands of allied soldiers had landed.

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"I remember when I got to England I was wearing a german helmet and this I had picked up on the way to the beach. The ground was littered and I mean littered with all sorts of corpses and destroyed and abandoned weaponry and machinery and I lifted a helmet from one of them and when I got back to england I put it on my head. I can remember because the photographers wanted a shot but it couldn't have been a very good photograph because it didn't get published.

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The army used gliders during the second world war to transport troops and equipment… so planes could be saved for bombing missions. Flying the one-use glider was extremely dangerous. many were shot down or missed their target landing zones.

Alex Reith will be visiting Normandy for the first time since his service in the Second World War. He expects it to be an emotional time.

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"The simple explanation is this, I landing on the soil in Normandy, I survived then and I've survived since. YOu must remember there were others that did precisely the same as me, probably much more hazardous than what I did, and a lot of them didn't survive so my thoughts are with them ... a lot of the people I drank with and trained with and had food with and went out with were no longer there and it was quite something.

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An estimated four and a half thousand allied troops died on D Day, the first day of months of fierce combat which saw the allies slowly fight their way to victory against Nazis Germany.

The 70th anniversary of the D Day landings is particularly poignant, with the recognition that this is likely to be the last major anniversary attended by veterans.

Catherine Drew, xx, London.