While the British media pull out
the stops for a colourful, explosive
multi-media 60th anniversary, have
we lost sight of just what British soldiers
and their families went through?

It seems it has been impossible to read a newspaper or watch television without some allusion to the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Televised ceremonies, re-enactments, stories about veteran’s pilgrimages to Arromanches and colourful celebrations have dominated our screens. But has all this exposure made the modern audience lose sight of the efforts of those involved?

Graphic scenes in films like Saving Private Ryan have numbed younger generations' capacity for shock, while reports on the events surrounding what was the most ambitious amphibious attack in wartime history are extremely difficult to relate to.

Even the BBC's successful docu-drama The Raw Recruits which attempted to convey the troops' lack of training failed to communicate the sheer terror felt by the young men who landed on the French beaches.

But there is one way that today’s media-exposed audience can begin to understand what those who were involved went through. Accounts from a generation of men and women who were there bring home the reality of those graphic re-enactments and the reason for such a mammoth anniversary celebration.

These stories of ordinary people who showed an incredible amount of bravery help people understand the scale and ferocity of World War 2 and the D-Day landings.

Now, media companies such as the BBC and the Guardian are making every effort to collect the kinds of stories from WW2 veterans that will capture the imaginations of future generations and help them understand the exactly what hundreds and thousands of ordinary families went through 60 years ago.

Read the account of one young soldier and his family

Read veterans’ accounts on WW2 pages from the BBC and the Guardian