A lone piper has played in northern France to mark the time the first British troops landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-day 75 years ago.
Pipe Major Trevor Macey-Lillie, from East Ayrshire, performed on a piece of Mulberry Harbour, the huge sections brought from the UK to make a port.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon attended a memorial service at the cathedral in Bayeux.
It was the first city in France to be liberated by the invasion.
The service was followed by a ceremony at Bayeux War Cemetery, where many of the fallen were buried.
The D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 marked the start of the campaign to liberate Northern Europe from Nazi occupation.
The landings on the beaches of Normandy were the largest seaborne invasion in history and laid the foundations for the Allied victory in World War Two.
By nightfall on the day of the invasion, British units had reached the outskirts of Bayeux and on the following day it was liberated.
Bayeux is also home to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Bayeux War Cemetery that contains the graves of men originally buried on the battlefields and of those who died in military hospitals in the town.
The cemetery was completed in 1952 and is now the final resting place of more than 4,100 Commonwealth servicemen, of whom nearly 340 remain unidentified.
Former Scottish soldiers, all in their 90s, will be part of a 300-strong group of D-Day veterans travelling to Bayeux to join the commemorations, which also include events seven miles away on the coast at Arromanches.
Events began at 06:26, with the tradition of a lone piper playing a lament on the remaining Mulberry artificial harbour in the town, named Port Winston.
The lament signals the time at which the first British soldier stepped onto Gold Beach at the beginning of the D-Day landings.
It was played by Pipe Major Macey-Lillie, of 19th Regiment Royal Artillery (The Scottish Gunners).
He played Highland Laddie, a tune based on a poem by Robert Burns.
Speaking after his performance, Pipe Major Macey-Lillie said: “That was nerve-wracking to do but I feel very proud and it was a privilege to do it.”
Pipe Major Macey-Lillie paid tribute to Bill Millin, who had been a piper during D-day.
“He encouraged his brothers-in-arms to get off the beach while playing Highland Laddie,” he said.
“The Germans thought he’d lost his mind and left him alone. He was marching up and down the beach, only armed with his bagpipes and a knife in his sock.”
Pipers were officially banned from the frontline in WW2 because of the number of casualties in World War One.
But Brigadier Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Special Service Brigade, defied the order and brought Private Millin, his personal piper, with him on D-Day.
Meanwhile, in Edinburgh later, 15 D-Day veterans will be presented with the Knight of the Légion d’Honneur Cross at the French Consulate.
Among them will be D-Day veteran Eric Tandy, who celebrated his 95th birthday in Glenrothes on 26 February.
Mr Tandy, who served with the 7th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was accidentally dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day.
He tried to make his way back to his own regiment through a minefield only to be captured by the enemy and held half-starved in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Mr Tandy told BBC Scotland that during the early stages of D-Day he had been in an aircraft carrying paratroopers to take part in the famous Pegasus Bridge campaign, whose strategic purpose was to secure river crossings for troops landing on the beaches and to reduce enemy defences.
However, as they were flying towards the bridge a medic on board the plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire.
The delay made Mr Tandy overshoot his jump by 10 miles and he landed beyond German lines and had to try to make his way back.
He was captured by German soldiers and taken to a POW camp.
Mr Tandy said that when he was finally liberated he was “nothing but skin and bone”.
Looking back on D-Day, Mr Tandy said: “I did as much as I could possibly do. For a young lad, I think I did well, quite frankly.”
Kindly follow us on twitter:@AfricanVoice2
