D-Day tribute ceremony takes place at science campus

On Saturday, the annual D-Day memorial service took place at the Harwell Stone at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus.

The stone marks the end of the runway from which soldiers took off from RAF Harwell on the night of June 5, 1944, in Horsa gliders towed by aircraft, to land in Normandy and capture key installations in advance of the D-Day landings.

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The gliders were carrying troops from the 6th Airborne Division.

The soldiers were among the first British forces to land in Normandy during the main assault for the liberation of Europe.

Last year’s service included the unveiling of a new sculpture designed by Charlotte Holmes.

The artwork is inspired by the curved wooden bulkheads of the Horsa gliders.

Made almost entirely of plywood with a canvas skin, each Horsa had a wingspan of 27 metres and length of 20 metres, weighed almost seven tons, and carried 28 airborne soldiers.

Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, soldiers landed next to two bridges including Pegasus Bridge, over the river and canal at Benouville, Normandy.

Capturing the two bridges, codenamed Ham and Jam, was a key part of the D-Day operation, as it hampered movement of enemy troops and enabled the Allied forces to press forward from the beaches.

Dropping on French soil minutes into D-Day, parachutists and gliders from the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the Glider Pilot Regiment joined the Royal Engineers, who were towed across the Channel in the 28-men gliders, pulled by bombers, before arriving at their small landing area with pinpoint accuracy from 6,000 feet.

Major John Howard, who devised the daring glider raid on the bridges, is buried in the churchyard at St Michael and All Angels’ Church, Clifton Hampden, near Abingdon, and he is remembered each year by fellow servicemen.