Beacons will be lit in Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney to remember the D Day Landings

Dignitaries will attend the ceremony of the 'Lights of Peace' to honour those who fell on the Normandy landing beaches 80 years ago today.

In Jersey, a wreath-laying service will take place at the Cenotaph in St Helier at 12.30 pm.

At 9.15 pm on 6 June, beacons will be lit at Castle Cornet in Guernsey, on the Butes in Alderney and at Noirmont Point in Jersey. The island's Bailiff, Sir Tim le Cocq, says it is important to honour the remaining D Day veterans:

"We have fewer and fewer people who have any direct memory, and as time goes on, those people won't be with us any more. So it's really important that whilst there are still those for whom it's a real, lived experience, to commemorate it.

These events are emblematic of who we are, who we have been, and therefore to an extent who we still are. It gives us the past, to help us into the future."

Helen Glencross, Guernsey's Head of Heritage Services, says today is poignant:

“It is an honour to be able to join the rest of the country in marking such a significant occasion, and we are pleased to have been able to invite people central to our Liberation Day celebrations – a closely linked part of our community’s history - to the event.”

Yesterday (5 June) Jersey's last Normandy veteran met the King at an event in Portsmouth to honour the heroes of the campaign - the largest seaborne invasion in military history.

Although the islands were by passed by the Allies until the end of the war, they did have some involvement in the days leading up to D Day.

In early June 1944, the RAF were concerned that two radar installations at Fort George, in St Peter Port, could detect the invasion fleet.

They attacked the Fort on 3 and 5 June and came up against heavy German anti-aircraft fire. In the last attack, their squadron leader, lieutenant John Saville, was hit, his plane crashed and he was lost in Havelet Bay. Every year there is a service to remember his courage.

The scars of those attacks can be seen on the granite of the Charlotte Battery today.

Weeks after D Day, the sound of guns could be heard as the Allies advanced on Cherbourg.

By August, American troops were at La Hague, just eight miles from Alderney. Guns from a German battery on the island shelled them, and in return, HMS Rodney fired a barrage of more than 70 heavy rounds on the gun site, but the damage was limited.