As part of the commemoration ceremony letters from the war heroes were read out, including one from Joe Mines, 99, from Hornchurch who was also at the event in Ver-sur-Mer.
Martin Freeman moved the crowd to tears as he read out a letter from a veteran who had to watch his friend die in Normandy.
Mr Freeman read to the glassy eyed crowd how Mr Mines had been forced to watch his friends leg get blown straight off while they were trying to clear the mines on the beaches. 'This is the last and only opportunity for me. The last there will ever be. And it is because of the lads. I want to pay my respects to those who didn't make it. May they rest in peace.'
With only rudimentary tools at his disposal, he was ordered to dig them out of the beach using only his bayonet.A veteran wipes a tear away from his eye 'As soon as we landed, a mate of mine got machine-gunned… There were five people in front of me who all got gunned down, and he was one of them. I suppose I just got lucky.
Another said: 'Martin Freeman told Joe Mines story so well there, I would be in floods reading that...beautiful service, beautiful memorial.'And a fourth wrote: 'These last last few men we owe so much to recalling their stories. Mr eyes are leaking and I don't care.'
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