During yesterday's D-Day anniversary, 17 World War two veterans in Kentucky took a special ride.

The group boarded Miss Mitchell, a B-25 bought bomber built in 1944.

Miss Mitchell flew 130 missions and North Africa and Italy.

Yesterday's flight from Bowman Field in Louisville included veterans ages 97 to 101.

Wow.

The Kentucky Veterans Program Trust Fund sponsored yesterday's flight of the 16 million men and women who served in the American military during World War Two.

It's estimated that about 100,000 remain.

More than 300,000 Kentuckians fought in World War Two.

At least eight from Fayette County landed on the beaches of Normandy.

80 years ago.

A special event last night at the Kentucky theater included firsthand reflections on D-Day.

Jesse Rice was born on March 24, 1922, and lived in both Fayette and Jessamine counties throughout his life.

We're actually sellable, waiting eight Fayette County soldiers who dropped into Normandy on D-Day and were killed over there.

And they're now buried in the Normandy American Cemetery.

So this is a very special evening to be able to honor them.

We have a long relationship with our sister city in Deauville, France, which is located in Normandy.

They certainly remember their because of our relationship being so long.

We were sister cities in 1957.

So it's been a long time and we know we've been there many times and we know how they remember over there.

They remember.

And we want our children to remember here.

It's been a real experience trying to find the the family members of the soldiers that will be accepting proclamation ins from the mayor tonight.

My father was 12 when Joseph was lost in World War Two in 1944.

He was a bomber navigator with the hundredth bomb group for many missions and on.

He just didn't come back from one of them.

I never been in Lexington before, but we've been able to walk the town and see where they live.

We know where they lived and where they shopped and where they went.

You know, restaurants, a lot of those places are still here.

They're well preserved in this town.

We stopped by the University of Kentucky because we figured there might be some information about my great uncle's education there.

And we discovered that not only was our great uncle there right before he was sent off to the war, but he was also there with his sister at the same time, which we had no idea that she had gone to the University of Kentucky.

So that was that was really, really neat to kind of pull that thread and find out something because a lot of these records are lost.

We don't even have his initial his initial service records.

We only know about his discharge and his death.

So it's it's really neat to be here with the University of Kentucky working with them to find these records that we thought previously were lost.

The Payne family is now on its third generation of aviators.

So my great uncle is a pilot.

He's a pilot.

I'm a pilot.

When duty calls for the right cause, we have to go regardless of the circumstances.

And that's what these people did.

And a lot of them paid with their life.

I was in water probably to my much.

We should always remember.

And, you know, the the soldiers who went over there to fight, we can't forget they were fighting against the Nazis.

And we have to remember these things and honor these things.

Beneath the American flag at the coastline.

Bides, quiet as a promised, terrifyingly still having been mourning for nearly 80 years.

I hope that they'll take away in their heart that we are friends with the people in Normandy and they always honor our fallen soldiers in that cemetery.

And also to understand the history so that we don't forget.

Special Ceremony.

Indeed.

Lexington's sister city relationship with Deauville is one of the oldest in the world.

President Eisenhower created the program and 1956 and Lexington became Deauville sister city in the next year and 1957.