PORTSMOUTH, United Kingdom - Queen Elizabeth II today shared a stage with world leaders including Donald Trump, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
In a moving ceremony in Portsmouth 300 heroes who survived the invasion of France in 1944 were guests of honour and a group stood and saluted the thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice fighting Hitler's Germany.
Mr Trump, who was accompanied by First Lady Melania, sat next to the Queen and Prince Charles and they smiled and chatted surrounded by the leaders of all the Allied nations who took part in Operation Overlord - the codename for D-Day.
The President then stood up and read excerpts of a prayer, broadcast across the United States by Franklin D. Roosevelt on the night of the D-Day invasion, before French President Macron rose to thank those who fought to liberate his country from Hitler's grip.
Tens of thousands of people also gathered at the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Southsea Common for the event which marks the 75th anniversary of the biggest amphibious invasion in military history.
75 years ago today - June 5 1944 - US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, gave the final order to invade German-occupied France with the message: 'The eyes of the world are upon you'.
Within hours the allied fleet of 2,700 ships was sent out of British ports all along the south of England - the biggest armada the world had ever seen - with the area around the Isle of Wight nicknamed 'Piccadilly Circus' - before sailing across the Channel as paratroopers were dropped into France.
From dawn on June 6 - known as the Longest Day - 156,000 troops stormed Normandy's beaches and smashed Hitler's Nazis, turning the Second World War in the allies' favour and leading to the liberation of Europe a year later.
It is considered the turning point of the Second World War - but Operation Overlord also led to to the deaths of thousands on both sides, with tens of thousands more injured.(FA)
