WAR veterans in Oxfordshire will fall silent on Saturday to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Dozens of former soldiers, their families, friends and community members will remember the Allied invasion of France, which began on June 6, 1944.

Among the first units to go into action in Normandy was the glider-borne 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, which landed at Pegasus Bridge, on the Caen Canal, at 16 minutes after midnight.

Their orders were to seize the bridge and hold it to prevent German counter-attacks reaching the invasion beaches, buying time for the Allies to establish a bridgehead on French soil.

The German army commander in Normandy, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was in no doubt about the importance of the opening phase of the assault, saying “...the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive... the fate of Germany depends on the outcome... for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.”

Members of the Royal British Legion in Woodstock will mark the occasion with a parade at the town’s social club, followed by a short service led by the Rev Canon Roger Humphreys.

About 150 people are expected to attend the event, which will finish with a 1940s’ cabaret, featuring music and dancing.

RBL branch chairman Gordon Hollis said: “It’s very important to remember the anniversary. D-Day was the beginning of the end of the war.

“Without the landings on D-Day, I think the outcome of the war would have been totally different.”

The 73-year-old said he made an emotional trip with other Royal British Legion members to the Normandy beaches in 1991 for the 47th anniversary of the landings.

And he said he could still remember being told about the invasion when he was a young boy at Woodstock’s Marlborough School.

Mr Hollis, who served in the Army for three years in Germany in the 1950s, said: “I remember my dad coming up, saying the war would soon be over, because the troops had just landed on the beaches.”

Veteran Harry Pearson, of Woodstock, was just 18 when he landed on Normandy’s Gold Beach with the Durham Light Infantry, six days after the initial assault.

The 83-year-old, of Kerwood Close, said: “I was on a troop ship. We went through the Channel and anchored in the Solent. We were the reinforcements.

“My brother Arthur went straight off the boat and into a minefield. He lasted all the way through and nothing exploded.

“We realised how important it all was. We pretty much knew it was make or break but I wouldn’t have missed it. We weren’t even scared.”

The former bus conductor, who left the Army in 1947, added: “It’s very important to remember what happened on D-Day – it beat fascism.”

Peter Jackson, secretary of the Wheatley Royal British Legion branch, said the anniversary would be marked in the village on Armed Forces Day on June 27, with a service of commemoration in the village hall.

The 71-year-old said: “My father went over on June 19. He was 40 years old at the time. He landed at Arromanches and finished up in Germany in 1945.”

He added that Canadian, British, American and Australian troops had camped in the village while preparing for D-Day.

FOR 91-year-old Ernest Powdrill, landing on the Normandy beaches left images of war burned in his memory for life.

The Didcot pensioner was 26 when he went ashore in France a week after D-Day.

Mr Powdrill, of Penpont Water, Ladygrove, landed on Juno Beach as part of reinforcements for the invasion force, arriving seven days after the initial invasion, after sailing from Tilbury in Essex.

He said: “There was no fear – excitement, yes. I cannot say we were frightened but we were apprehensive. We had no doubts that it was going to be successful.

“We knew it was going to be a hard slog but we knew that the end would be in our favour. We were so well trained.”

Mr Powdrill said he was pleased the 65th anniversary was being marked.

He said: “It’s an absolute requirement that we remember what happened. We went through so much and saw so much carnage that we cannot forget it.

“To pass by this anniversary without some sort of recognition would be a betrayal really of what we did in those times.”

The grandfather and father-of-two served in the Honourable Artillery Company and was awarded the Military Cross in 1944.

Earlier his year he published his memoirs, In The Face Of The Enemy, which described his experiences during the Second World War.

The former town planner, who has lived in Didcot since 1997, was wounded at Dunkirk in 1940 as British troops were evacuated when the Germans conquered France.

He said: “I was psychologically damaged for many years. It didn’t affect the way I worked or lived but it was always constantly in my mind. The images and memories are really very sharp.

“When you have had people killed by your side and another couple of inches and it would have been you, that does make you think.”