Moment for reflection as PM honours war dead

The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the base of a monument at Tourgeville Military Cemetery, south of Le Havre and adjoining Deauville.

The cemetery, hidden away down a country road, includes the graves of 210 Commonwealth soldiers who died during the First World War as well as those of 13 further casualties of the Second World War.

It also contains the graves of 90 German combatants.

Mr Cameron placed a wreath at the memorial with the signed message: "You gave your lives so we could live in freedom and so Europe was free from tyranny. We will never forget your service and sacrifice."

A number of the soldiers who are remembered at Tourgeville Military Cemetery were aged under 20 when they died during the conflicts.

The Prime Minister was shown around the site, which adjoins a military hospital that has been there for almost a century, by David Bennett of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The organisation, which was founded by Sir Fabian Ware and established by royal charter in 1917, erects permanent memorials for 1.7 million casualties of the two world wars where the remains are missing.

It has commemorated the deaths of more than one million casualties around the world at some 2,500 sites.