1066 and all that

Sir, Your leading article (“On the beaches”, June 6) paid a fitting tribute to those involved in the D-Day landings. However, it displayed — surprisingly — a less certain grasp of English history: “Crossing the Channel in force had eluded the Spanish Armada and Napolean’s navy, and all invaders since Julius Caesar.”

The army of the Roman emperor Claudius managed it well enough in 43AD, almost a century after Caesar. And 1066, with the successful invasion of William the Conqueror from Normandy, still remains the best-known date in English history.

Dr John Wreglesworth

Banbury, Oxon

Sir, For the record it was three days after the beach invasion that the precast concrete units were delivered to the beach and, once in place, created Mulberry Harbour.