Prince Harry to meet Normandy invasion veterans in Hampshire

Updated

Prince Harry is to meet D-Day veterans during a visit to the headquarters where the Allied commanders planned the Normandy invasion.

Veterans who took part in the dramatic landings in 1944 will meet Harry at Southwick House, near Portsmouth, Hampshire, ahead of their annual pilgrimage to Normandy.

The event has been organised by D-Day Revisited, a charity which funds and organises trips for veterans to France to revisit the beaches and surrounding area and to pay tribute to those who died there.

During his visit to Southwick House, Harry will visit the Map Room where the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D Eisenhower, plotted the campaign with naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Ramsay and the Army Commander-in-Chief General Montgomery.

They used a large plywood map of the English Channel, which was big enough to fill an entire wall of the old drawing room, which was commissioned by the firm Chad Valley Toys and was installed in the house in April 1944.

The pins, tapes and markers on the map have now been reset to mark the moment when the landings began on the British and Canadian beaches on D-Day.

Harry will meet veterans from the landings and is expected to hear first-hand accounts of the invasion.

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