ROYALS AT D-DAY COMMEMORATIONS

He said Catherine's grandmother had worked at Bletchley Park, the top-secret home of the World War Two code-breakers, and "never spoke about anything until the very end" of the war.

On June 5th, the eve of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, King Charles, with Queen Camilla and his son the Prince of Wales, addressed a national D-Day commemoration in Portsmouth, one of the key departure points for the Normandy landings in June 1944.

The King hailed the “courage, resilience and solidarity” of those who had taken part in D-Day and whose numbers were now “dwindling to so few.”

The audience rose to their feet when veterans stood to make speeches and the Queen was brought to tears.

In his biggest public speech since his cancer diagnosis, King Charles hailed the “greatest amphibious operation in history” and the courage of those who “must have questioned if they would survive.”

The King said their efforts to end “brutal totalitarianism” must never be forgotten, and he called on the present generation to honour those who had died, in ways that “live up to the freedom they died for, by balancing rights with civic responsibilities.”

Prince William delivered a poignant reading from the diary of Captain Alastair Bannerman, in which the soldier remembered his family as he headed towards the French coast on the morning of D-Day. Captain Bannerman survived the landing and the war, Prince William said, adding: "Too many never returned." Speaking to some of the veterans later, Prince William was asked about his wife Catherine's recovery and said: "She'd love to be here today."