NEWS COMMENT: Please help find photos of these brave men

It is therefore no surprise that pictures, even from particularly historic moments, can be harder to come by.

But pictures of those who took part in those historic events may be somewhat easier to find.

Portsmouth City Council is looking for pictures of more than 100 men from the city who died during Operation Overlord. At the moment they only have photos of five of the 119 – and they want the public’s help to find more. The council is looking to create plaques bearing names and photos displayed in the roads they lived. A similar scheme to remember those who died in the First World War has proved popular. 

Of course these photos do not need to come from the actual era in question, but one only has to look at our own Remember When nostalgia section to know the evocative power an image can hold.

As council leader Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson says: ‘We hope Portsmouth people will get behind this and help us find photographs for each of the men. It makes it much more powerful to see the faces of the men who lost their lives.

This is likely to be the last significant anniversary where any survivors will be able to take part in the commemorations. 

After this, we will have lost our few remaining living links to those incredible, terrifying and heroic events of 1944, which began with D-Day on June 6, and ended in August with the liberation of Paris.

Today we are publishing the names of all 119 men in the hope that some of our readers will be able to help in digging out pictures of them. It is the least we can do to help keep their brave deeds fixed in our thoughts for as long as possible.