Picture gallery: A great day out for dads and all the family at IWM Duxford’s Military Vehicle Show

Left to right, Gil Boyd of the Airborne Assault Museum with Sergeant Edward Johnny Peters, enjoying a wartime pint in the pop up pub. (Image: Archant)

Visitors experienced a wide range of Second World War re-enactment groups in the museum’s living history village and chatted to group members about all aspects of ground warfare.

Living history groups also presented dynamic demonstrations, showing an airborne forces church parade and how British and US airborne forces prepared for deployment. The Normandy vignette took visitors back to Normandy during the Second World War, where British troops were using an abandoned German truck as a staging post for further operations.

Arnhem veteran Sgt Edward ‘Johnny’ Peters made his way to the pop-up Wheatsheaf Pub, run by the Glosters (6th Airborne Battlefield Replacements) Living History Group, where he shared a pint of wartime beer with Parachute Regiment veterans. Johnny served with the Airborne Infantry and was transported into battle by glider as part of the 1st Batallion the Border Regiment.

He is a veteran of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and Operation Market Garden, the allied airborne assault at Arnhem in September 1944.

Visitors were also able to get up close to hundreds of military vehicles of all shapes and sizes, from motorcycles to jeeps, ambulances to huge trucks and tanks. These included a 1918 Vauxhall Motors staff car which was used in the film War Horse.

At 2pm, many of the military vehicles sprang into life to take place in the military vehicle cavalcade along the runway.

Visitors were also able to take a peek at military vehicles being restored in the Duxford Aviation Society Military Vehicle Wing workshop and could also take a ride in a tank themselves!

It was a great day out for dad and all the family!