Hull MP's D-Day anniversary tribute to local war heroes

Hull North MP Diana Johnson visited Hull Northern Cemetery in her Constituency today (6 June) to see the local work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

The CWGC maintains war cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 153 countries.

Hull Northern Cemetery in Chanterlands Avenue contains 279 Second World War graves and 69 scattered First World War burials.

The local Labour MP's visit, although arranged as part of this year's commemorations around the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, also takes place on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy that led to the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation.

This year the Hull North MP has made a number of privately arranged personal visits to CWGC sites across Europe. These include the Tyne Cot First World War Cemetery near Passchendaele in Belgium; and Second World War cemeteries at Cassino in Italy and Bayeux in Normandy, France.

In Normandy last Sunday (1 June), Diana Johnson MP saw the graves of members of the East Yorkshire Regiment killed on D-Day and stood on the beaches in Arromanches where the Allied landings took place on 6 June 1944.

Hull North MP Diana Johnson said: "The Commonwealth War Graves Commission does admirable work ensuring that the graves of the men and women who gave their lives in past wars are set in immaculate surroundings in thousands of sites around the World. I support efforts to ensure that these standards are maintained too in Hull.

"Visiting these sites, as I've been doing, you cannot be other than humbled at the terrible scale of sacrifice made to secure the freedoms we perhaps take too much for granted. It was also moving to see the very young age of so many of those in the British and Commonwealth forces who gave their lives. This includes members of the East Yorkshire Regiment who I saw commemorated in Italy and Normandy.

"The innovation and ingenuity involved in the D-Day landings was incredible and standing on the actual beaches where it happened helped me to appreciate the immensity of the achievement.

"I was also impressed and proud to see so many Union Flags flying alongside those of our allies in local French homes in Normandy. In Hull, we will never forget the price that Hull people - both in the forces and at home - paid to ensure our survival as a nation, to defeat the Nazis and, ultimately, to liberate Germany from that evil regime."