Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said more planes will be found to take part in a mass parachute drop for this year’s D-Day commemorations. One plane is available for the Parachute Regiment to use in events to mark the 80th anniversary in June with four needed, according to the Mail on Sunday. He added that the issue had only been brought to him “very recently”. The planes that would be used, Atlas A400s, are currently involved in military operations, including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Mr Shapps added that the lack of available planes to attend the commemoration was one of the reasons he had argued that more money needed to be invested into the armed services. D-Day commemorations are held to mark the beginning of the campaign to free north-west Europe from the Nazis during World War Two. This year’s events will take place on 5 and 6 June in Portsmouth and in Normandy in France. More than 1,600 members of the British Armed Forces will be involved. A Parachute Regiment source told the Mail on Sunday that the regiment wanted four of A400s for the day, to allow about 450 paratroopers to take part. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said the commemorations would “offer a comprehensive programme of tributes from today’s Armed Forces to their forebears” with “a significant amount of activity in both France and the UK, involving thousands of personnel, Royal Air Force flypasts, and Royal Navy vessels”. They added: “This will include a commemorative jump by UK paratroopers from an A400M aircraft on the 5 June alongside Allied counterparts.”
