The huge planes had taken off from Cherbourg and were performing a practice-run for today’s D-Day celebrations on and over the Normandy landing beaches, where 72 years ago Allied forces opened a second front against the Germans.
And in a clear spirit of reconciliation, one of the aircraft over Jersey yesterday was a Luftwaffe Transall C-160. The others were a French air force CASA CN-235 and four US Air Force C-130J transporters.
Today, the aircraft are due to return. They will leave Cherbourg, fly over Alderney, as they did on Sunday, and then head to Normandy, where they will drop parachutists to recreate the airborne landings of Operation Overlord in the early hours of 6 June 1944.
One of the US aircraft, photographed over Jersey by Graham Hocquard:
And the German Transall C-160:
Video filmed by Alderney Airport: