D-Day veterans prove that age shall not weary them

Don Sheppard is now 97, John Sleep is 96, but as young men in 1944 they took part in the D-Day landings.

They were just two of the old soldiers who spent last weekend in Portsmouth as part of the Spirit of Normandy Trust’s annual reunion.

The trust, founded in 1994, is the successor to the Normandy Veterans’ Association which was disbanded as its members grew older.

Apart from taking part in the Normandy landings in June 1944, Mr Sheppard, who served with the 51st Highland Division, saw Second World War action in North Africa. Sicily and across Europe.

Mr Sleep, originally of the Royal Berkshire Regiment and then of the Parachute Regiment, joined Operation Overlord on D-Day plus-four and is also a veteran of Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem, the daring but doomed September 1944 Allied airborne attempt to shorten the end of the war.

Veterans came from across Britain for a series of social events and a parade on Castle Field, Southsea.

Pictures: Duncan Shepherd