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D-Day re-enactment groups have said their work to inspire remembrance of the Normandy landings is more important now many of the men involved are now longer with us.

Living history groups have collected garments, artefacts and weaponry to display for educational purposes, while re-enactment groups go a step further in theatrically recreating the event.

Michael Lycett, organiser of the East Yorkshire Regiment Living Group, said the reenactors had become friends with many of the battalion's veterans over the years.

"We have heard their stories first hand and feel well qualified to pass them on. By attending shows and putting on displays we are able to tell their stories to a wide audience.

"This is more important now these men are not here to do so themselves."

The group displays weapons and explosives, as well as a pot of sand from each of the landing beaches and a lump of concrete from the Merville Gun Battery in Normandy.

Glenn Caton, 61, who runs the Suffolk Military Show portraying historical conflicts from the past 1,000 years, said re-enactment is vital for stoking remembrance.

"Unfortunately events such as theD-Daylandings are now becoming confined to the history books, as these significant moments are largely beyond living memory."

He added: "One of the mantras The Suffolk Military Shows has adopted is 'I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand'."

Arthur Oborne, 100, paid a tearful tribute to a friend who saved his life on D-Day earlier this afternoon.

He was shot in the lung three days after arriving on Gold Beach and his friend, Walter Gummerson, was killed the next day alongside the rest of his unit.

"I wish I could tell him that I have never taken his sacrifice for granted and will always remember him and our friends," said Mr Oborne from Portishead, while speaking at the UK national commemorative event in Ver-sur-Mer, Normandy.

"So Gummy, thank you my old friend."

Afterwards he said: "I had no problems talking but it was a bit emotional, I was a bit upset and teary.

"I think everyone did well at the service, I was a bit apprehensive at the start but I wanted to speak."

Royal Marine Jim Grant recalled the sheer noise of the assault, which left him partially deaf.

Attacking Sword Beach via landing craft, he was escorting Canadian forces across to Normandy.

"The noise from the guns, the German guns and the guns from the battleships who had started firing over our heads, was deafening," he said.

Behind the infantry storming the beaches of Normandy were soldiers tasked with keeping guns loaded, vehicles fuelled and troops fed.

Jack Mortimer, 100, was one such driver and dispatch rider, who "worked like hell" to keep his comrades on Sword Beach fighting effectively.

He described driving "frightened to death" up the beach in a jeep with a trailer, with hundreds of rockets flying overhead.

"Driving up that beach, the noise, the smoke, frightened to death, hearing guns going off and seeing thousands of soldiers and ships on either side, it was organised army chaos," said the former 12th Ordnance Beach detachment volunteer.

"Our job was to organise the beach so we could help anyone who got in trouble coming on shore.

"A gun can't fire without ammunition, a tank can't go without petrol and men need food, so we worked like hell to keep the stores equipped."

Mr Mortimer said he will be travelling back to Normandy for the anniversary.

"When I go there, I cry.

"I don't think I'm a hero, the heroes are the ones who didn't come home, and they should always be remembered.

"It is very emotional, of course, to remember those who went and didn't come back."

The most ambitious amphibious operation in history required the waterproofing of weapons and other sensitive equipment

Among those ensuring the guns worked when they landed on Gold Beach was gunner Donald Howkins, who spent the month before D-Day in Weybridge learning how to protect them from the sea.

He said he struggles to remember fighting on the beaches, but battles in the nearby village of Tilly-sur-Seulles were not soon going to leave him.

"The destruction of a town and death in such a way I have never discussed it," he said.

"It was also here that my good friend from my hometown was badly wounded and his war was over."

From there, they "zigged and zagged northward through Normandy" and into Belgium.

"During these first months we lost some good men."

Royals, world leaders and veterans gathered on Omaha Beach today to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

As veterans arrived at the international commemoration service, world leaders applauded each of them asthey were pushed past them on wheelchairs, some of them smilingproudly and saluting.

Ralph McClure, 99, who was a signalman on board the HMS LCT 952, has been speaking about the moment he lost a friend on D-Day.

The grandfather of actress Vicky McClure said: "There was a flash where he was standing and from then till now I've tried to find out if he made it.

"I feel he might not have done.

"I think a lot about him - we used to have a lot of good times together."

The veteran left Newhaven on D-Day in a tank landing ship and took tanks and supplies to the troops on the ground in Normandy.

He was there for six weeks and remembers seeing Winston Churchill arriving on the beaches in France.

A thank you note written to a soldier by the commander of the land forces on D-Day has been shared with Sky News.

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, known as Monty, was one of the most prominent and successful British commanders, playing crucial roles in the Allied invasions of Italy and France.

His letter of praise, sent at the end of the war, was received by Sergeant Michael Murphy, who evacuated from Dunkirk only to return to France on D-Day, before fighting with the Second Army through to VE day.

"Together we have carried through one of the most successful campaigns in history and it has been our good fortune to be members of this great team," it read.

Sergeant Murphy also kept a letter of thanks written by General Miles Dempsey, who commanded the British Second Army, which, together with the Canadian First Army, made up the 21 Army Group and led the invasion of Normandy.

Seargent Murphy's records have been shared with Sky News by Their Finest Hour, a National Lottery Heritage Fund project at Oxford University that has recorded and digitised hundreds of war stories and launched on 6 June.

Tens of thousands of soldiers sailed across the channel to Normandy, but John Dennett made the trip 16 times with the Royal Navy.

He was tasked with travelling back and forth between Sword beach and Portsmouth, Southampton and Tilbury, picking up troops, tanks and vehicles.

On the way home, he took injured troops and prisoners back to the UK.

Now aged 99, he recalled sailing alongside the battleship HMS Warspite, known to to his comrades affectionately as the Old Lady, as it fired its weapons.

"The whole ship rocked backwards in recoil, with a great belch of flame before being covered in smoke. It was such a fantastic sight."

The 156,000 troops who reached the shores of Normandy on D-Day were the first - but far from the last.

By 30 June, theAllies had established a foothold in northern France consisting of 850,279 men, 148,803 vehicles and 570,505 tons of supplies, according to the US department of defence.

Among those soldiers landing after D-Day itself was DougBaldwin, who, aged just 18, was captured by German forces pushing through France.

The teenager, who arrived in Normandy on 25 June, 1944, was forced to work in coal mines for nine months at several prisoner-of-war camps.

Mr Baldwin said prisoners were treated "like you were cattle" and got to "think like an animal", explaining he ate dandelion leaves.

One of seven children from Kent, Mr Baldwin fought with his regiment through northern France.

"There were many occasions where there was nobody to tell you what to do. You had to think for yourself. There was very little difference between being brave or stupidity."

Stunned by an explosion during a battle in the village of Estry on 8 August, he was marched at gun point by two German soldiers to a car; the beginning of his transport to Stalag 12A on 28 August.

"I thought I was going to die, but it didn't bother me. I didn't think it was going to hurt much."

After nine months in the camps, he recalled the suddenness of leaving when it was liberated by Allied forces.

"We woke up one morning and we could not see any guards about. We were walking towards the sound of the guns, which turned out to be the American lines."

Mr Baldwin returned home on 1 May 1945 – one week before VE Day – suffering from malnutrition and starvation.

He received the Legion d'honneur, France's highest military honour, in 2021.

Asked what the secret was to a good life, Doug said: "Freedom to do what you want."

He added: "I was always lucky – for some reason they kept missing me!"