Seventy-five years on from the D-Day landings and the ensuing battles to free western Europe from Nazi occupation, I wonder how the survivors of this terrible conflict reflect on the years past. Their sacrifices kept us free from the oppression of a dictatorial regime, giving us freedom of choice, free speech and the right to vote for our own elected representatives.

We forget how, without the freedom won by these men and women, all the public demonstrations we see now - LGBT, anti-fracking, the protests on climate change and many more - would have been crushed under Nazi jackboots.

Although not a Trump supporter, the demonstrations against him show a lack of respect for his position. The D-Day celebrations should be a mark of respect for the people who gave us the freedom we enjoy, not a platform for the demonstrations and the news coverage the anti-Trump protesters seek.

D M Deamer, Penleys Grove Street, Monkgate, York

We need a leader of Churchill’s stature today

IN June 1940 we were ignominiously driven out of France, although we did manage to save some 350,000 men without equipment. While fighting thereafter in Africa, Italy and the Far East, at sea and in the air, we planned for four years to return to Europe, which we did in June 1944 with two million of the best-equipped troops ever.

With meticulous attention to detail, ingenious stratagems and ground-breaking new methods such as artificial harbours and undersea oil pipelines, we outmanoeuvred an unimaginative enemy.

Had it not been for Churchill in 1940, the large section of our elite who wished to ‘negotiate’ with Germany would probably have succeeded. Today, three years after deciding to leave the EU, we are no nearer to doing so in the absence of a politician and patriot of Churchill’s calibre.

A V Martin, Westfield Close, Wigginton,York