A PARADE and flypast marked the 65th anniversary of one of the last offensives of the Second World War, which was launched from airfields in Essex.
Veterans of Operation Varsity joined airmen from 4 Regiment, Army Air Corps, for a service of remembrance at a memorial on the Marks Hall estate near Coggeshall.
The annual service, organised by the Glider Pilot Regimental Association, commemorated the 102 pilots killed from among the 440 who took part.
The March 1945 operation saw troops landed behind German lines from flimsy wooden gliders and by parachute to secure routes across the River Rhine for tanks to advance deep into Germany.
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