Follow #DDayLive as Express & Star tells the story of the Normandy Invasion as it happened
They were the ones who changed the course of history.
And today the Express & Star aims to tell the stories of the heroism, bravery and losses of D-Day through the eyes of the Black Country and Staffordshire soldiers who were there, in real time.
Using Twitter, we will tell the story of 24 hours that changed the fortunes of the Allies in the Second World War and put Europe on the path to freedom.
With the hashtag #DDayLive, we have turned their stories into live updates between 10pm tonight to 10pm tomorrow, imagining how it would be were the Second World War being fought in an age of instant communication and 24-hour news.
It coincides with our 12-page special supplement today (THURS) as the veterans of D-Day tell in their own words what they lived through and experienced on the day of Operation Neptune.
Soldiers, sailors, pilots and paras from the West Midlands were among thousands of men who put their lives on the line in the pivotal Normandy invasion of June 6 1944.
They tell stories of boats rocked by the force of explosions, of how they watched the awesome sight of shells being fired over their heads, had to land their gliders under fire and how they wept for the friends who did not make it back.
Our tweets chart not only the key moments in the invasion but also the thoughts, feelings and fears that went through these brave men's minds as they did everything they could to take the fight to Hitler and put the Allies on the course to winning the war.
They describe in vivid detail, condensed into the 140-character limit of a tweet, the sights, sounds and smells of those Normandy beaches.
These are not the famous voices of Winston Churchill or Dwight Eisenhower but of the Midlands Tommies to whom every free British man and woman owes an eternal debt of gratitude.
Follow the Tweets on twitter.com/ExpressandStar or on expressandstar.com
