内容摘要：He also had a pledge card not vastly dissimilar to the card of pledges the party is parading now.

He also had a pledge card not vastly dissimilar to the card of pledges the party is parading now.

and gun detachment of eight personnel".He had volunteered for the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1942 because he thought it would be "more exciting" than his time as an Army private manning a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft unit.

"It's like flying a brick – there's only one way, and it's down," said Mr Davies, from Bollington, Cheshire, describing what it was like once the the glider was loosed."There was a hell of a lot of flak, we lost our controls and having lost a great chunk of one wing, we were pulling deeper and deeper into enemy ground."When we hit the ground – and I do mean hit – we were very much in the wrong place amongst a load of very angry Germans, and it was total chaos."

One American glider came down within 50m (about 160ft) of him, "and not one man got out alive because the Germans were there as well".But with co-pilot Bert Bowman, he made it across the battlefield to their intended drop zone and returned to Britain.

"The Allies landed directly on top of the Germans and lots of gliders were shot down and lots of paratroopers were shot in the skies – 80 people from RAF Rivenhall alone lost their lives," said Mr Bullock, 56, who served in the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment for 25 years.

Operation Varsity was the largest single airborne operation in history, with more than 16,000 men were dropped into western Germany on the same day.has been reduced in scale and affordable housing has been removed, while a potential site on Les Caches in St Martin is no longer available.

The DPA plans to replace the two lost developments for affordable housing with sites in St Martin and St Peter Port.It said there would be further opportunities for public consultation on the new sites following the general election in June.

The public consultation is one ofin recent years as it tries to settle on locations for development, in a bid to