Drinking cider in the bright French sunshine in the picturesque Normandy countryside, it is hard to imagine the sheer numbers of those who fell during the D-Day landings 70 years ago. For Usk locals Henry Humphreys, his son Adam and four other passengers, last weeks voyage to join the Second World War commemoration was both an eye-opener and a real dose of perspective. The celebrations served to commemorate the thousands of Allied troops who stormed the 80 kilometre stretch of Normandy beaches, to begin the liberation of Europe. Leading the contingent in his two Second World War Willys jeeps, Mr Humphreys and the enthusiastic crew joined a convoy of 60 other historic military vehicle enthusiasts crossing the channel from Portsmouth to Caen. The convoy made their way to the Reine Mathilde campsite just outside Étréham, a town five kilometres from the then strategically vital Port-en-Bessin. Soaking up the history, the Usk representatives wandered between the festival like atmosphere of the Normandy towns to the sombre hush of the cemeteries that house the thousands of war dead. "What was quite extraordinary was how the French responded and how we were received," passenger Thomas Savery said. "I've been to France before and just been another tourist speaking bad French. "But the liberation in Normandy is obviously still so pertinent for the locals. They were really pleased to see us traipsing through, waving and highfiving from the roadside. "You see it on telly and read about it in books but seeing the actual site in person, the 9,800 graves at Omaha beach, the scale of the engineering, is really amazing. "To see everyone paying their respects and taking the time to really think about what people gave was thought-provoking. It is easy to say, we should remember, but it is just so important; we must remember." It took nearly double the time to travel to Portsmouth from Usk in the jeeps at a top speed of 50 miles per hour, with a flat tyre before they even boarded the ferry and a broken throttle linkage once on French soil, ingeniously mended using wartime procedures of a bootlace and a bit of innovation, which lasted the rest of the journey home. Mr Humphreys and friend Edmund Hornby also happened to be in the right place at the right time whilst waiting for the Queen to arrive. Standing amongst a small waiting crowd, the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls approached them to shake their hands, exchanging pleasantries about the weather and exclaiming over Mr Hornby's leather and wool hat, of which he was very impressed. Of the 156,000 British, US and Canadian forces who invaded the Nazi occupied northern France on the day of the landings, 6th June 1944, as many as 4,000 Allied troops are thought to have died.