VETERANS and world leaders paid tribute today to the troops who risked or lost their lives fighting fascism in nazi-occupied France on D-Day 70 years ago. 

As the sun rose over a gusty Omaha Beach, flags flew at half-mast. 

A US military band played while D-Day veterans and serving soldiers stood at attention at 6.30am, the moment on June 6 1944 when Allied troops first waded ashore.

Hundreds of Normandy residents and other onlookers applauded the veterans, then began forming a human chain on the beach.

World leaders and dignitaries including US President Barack Obama attended to honour the more than 150,000 D-Day troops who risked and gave their lives to defeat Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was also in attendance, invited by French President Francois Hollande to honour the 27 million Soviet citizens killed in World War II.

Several thousand veterans, family members and others gathered at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, with its 9,387 white marble tombstones on a bluff overlooking the site of the battle’s bloodiest fighting at Omaha Beach.

President Obama told the crowds: “Seventy years later, we pay tribute to the service members who secured a beachhead on an unforgiving shore — the patriots who, through their courage and sacrifice, changed the course of an entire century. 

“Today, as we carry on the struggle for liberty and universal human rights, let us draw strength from a moment when free nations beat back the forces of oppression and gave new hope to the world.”

In addition to the fallen troops, Allied bombardments killed an estimated 20,000 French civilians and Mr Hollande paid tribute to them in Caen which, like many cities of Normandy, was largely destroyed in the bombings.

“No-one knew that this day would be the first of one of the most ferocious battles of France,” he said.

“This battle was also a battle of civilians.”

He added that Normandy’s residents “helped the victory happen. They opened their doors to the liberators.”