IF you wanted to go to war, this wasn't the day you would have chosen...

But the weather scarcely seemed to matter to the thousands who turned out to watch the Poulton Heritage Festival's centrepiece D-Day battle scenario on Morecambe beach.

Fierce winds and lashing rain held off while the men and women of re-enactment group Kompanie One did their bit in spectacular fashion - with every German casualty earning a cheer from spectators and the eventual surrender of Axis troops bringing loud applause.

But it was local police who actually opened hostilities with a sense of humour which matched the occasion slapping a fixed penalty' parking ticket on a German half-track vehicle used in the battle, pictured.