With just a few days to go to the wonderful celebrations starting in Normandy, this post takes a look at some of the remarkable D-Day related sights I have enjoyed over the past week or so.

First of all a wonderful trip to Duxford on Bank Holiday Monday saw a great chance to watch some of the early arrivals for “Days over Duxford”. Six Dakotas arrived over the course of the day to join the two airframes already in place ready for the festivities. There is always something remarkable about transatlantic warbird flights and watching arrival after arrival was great to see.

Another D-Day marked aircraft flying on the day was the Ultimate Warbird Flights P-47D “Nellie B” flying alongside its stablemates, together with Sally B.

It was also great to see a solo performance from Buchon White 9 which looked wonderful with the surreal background of an ever growing DC-3/C-47 line up.

Yesterday saw the frankly jaw-dropping announcement that up to nine of the D-Day squadron machines would be on the ground at Old Warden tomorrow, with six airframes available for close public expenditure. Just a month ago we were in awe at a single “Dak” landing at Old Warden and as I write, seven have already touched down. Together with multiple cubs expected in the flying display, this may perhaps be the best tribute to the landings at a show this year.

While I didn’t make the trip to Old Warden today I did get a chance to head down to Headcorn where Aero Legends were operating three ship two seat Spitfire flights. Their own aircraft, NH341, is a D-day veteran, though currently without invasion stripes. Flying alongside their aircraft was PV202, recently completed with half invasion stripes. The highlight was the Headcorn debut (to my knowledge) of the Boultbee airframe SM520. I haven’t seen this airframe in a long while and it has recently been completed with all round invasion stripes, a great look on a Spitfire!

With Old Warden Flying Festival tomorrow and “Daks over Duxford” on Wednesday, there will be plenty of D-Day content to come, a tremendous tribute to a monumental effort and sacrifice 75 years ago today.