For all that this is happening in the early summer of 2024, the busy propellers of these vintage planes do not feel that far removed from the events which played out here exactly 80 years ago this week, as the D-Day landings changed the course of the Second World War.
Not “here” precisely, of course. At least, not without caveats. The main spear thrusts of Operations Neptune and Overlord pierced the enemy flank – as history knows well – some 200 miles to the south-west, along the arc of the Normandy seafront. Together, Allied and German forces sustained an estimated 15,000 fatalities that morning;…