This month sees the anniversary of two big battles in the First and Second World Wars.

On Friday it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, that began the assault on Nazi-occupied Europe.

The end of June marks the eve of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, when thousands of British troops, including battalions from Bradford and Leeds, were moved forward for a 7am attack on German trenches the following morning.

Two men from Bradford are going to each of these battle areas.

Philip Sweeney left Leeds to work in Bradford and has been a lawyer here since 1989. At the end of this month he is retiring from Opus Law in Piccadilly and moving with his Thai wife to Thailand.

But on Friday he’s taking his 92-year-old mother Geraldine to an event in France to mark the anniversary of the Normany landings in which his late father, Henry Sweeney, nicknamed ‘Tod’, played a key part.

“She and I last went there for the 65th anniversary when they had the unveiling of the memorial stone in the grounds of the Pegasus Museum,” Mr Sweeney said.

His father was part of a six-strong force of 187 glider troops and RAF personnel that landed behind German lines to take and secure over a period of weeks the canal bridge at Caen and the river bridge at Ranville, known respectively as Pegasus and Horsa bridges.

“If they had failed to take the bridges, the Germans would have been able to move heavy armour across to the beach-heads, so it could have been fairly catastrophic for the sea landings,” Mr Sweeney added.

His father, who was awarded a Military Cross by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery for rescuing a wounded colleague, had been a monk in Berkshire before the war but gave up his vocation to fight.

His father’s extraordinary life – he commanded the Green Jackets in Malaya for two years, was adviser to the UK Defence Mission to the United Nations for three years in the 1960s and for 13 years was director general of Battersea Dogs’ Home – was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1985.

“My father knew it could all have gone horribly wrong. His best friend at the time, a platoon commander, was one of the first British soldiers killed,” Mr Sweeney added.

The night before the Battle of the Somme, Bradford and Leeds Pals Battalions spent the night at the village of Bus Les Artois.

The plan was to relieve pressure on French soldiers defending Verdun by a mass assault on German lines. The result, as we know, was that by the end of that Saturday, July 1, 1916, the Army had suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, a third of whom were killed. Hundreds of Bradford and Leeds Pals were killed or wounded.

On June 30, the people of Bus les Artois are having a ceremony to commemorate the fallen Leeds Pals, to whom there is a memorial, paid for by Leeds City Council in 2006.

There is no such memorial for the Bradford Pals. That is something that Mick Kirby and other Bradford City supporters (nine Bradford City players and two Bradford Park Avenue players were killed in the First World War) hope to rectify.

“Following last year’s visit to Bus, where we attended the ceremony, upon our return I asked a friend who works at Bradford City Hall to see if despite these austere times, the Council would consider funding the cost of a matching memorial stone to the one for the Leeds Pals in Bus in recognition of the sacrifice made by Bradford’s young men.

“The Mayor of Bus, Philippe Rouvillain, had no objections to the plan, so we are waiting on progress from the Council. For such a memorial, the Portland stone would be approximately £1,400, plus transporting and carving costs.”

Councillor David Green, leader of Bradford Council, is reportedly “very enthusiastic” about it. An announcement from City Hall is expected in time for the 98th anniversary of the start of the Somme battle.

Also on June 30, at 11am, there is a memorial ceremony for Lieutenant Donald Bell, a Park Avenue footballer before the war, who was awarded the VC at Contalmaison nearby and has his own memorial stone at Horseshoe Trench.