Queen Camilla sheds a tear for D-Day veterans - after her own father Bruce Shand was...

Queen Camilla was overcome with emotion as she took in yesterday's D-Day remembrance and listened to a veteran recount the horror of losing his best friend on the beaches of Normandy 80 years ago....

 And the commemorations are likely to have hit home for the wife of King Charles, 75, who has her own family connections to the tragic events that took part during World War II... 

 Her father, Bruce Shand, was taken as a prisoner of war in Germany - and earned a Military Cross for valour... 

 Major Shand, who died in June 2006, was commissioned into the 12th Royal Lancers in 1937 after graduating from Sandhurst...

 In 1940 he found himself in France facing the Germans in their drive toward the sea. Pulling back with his men to the coast, he narrowly avoided capture before evacuation from Dunkirk... 

 The citation for his Military Cross speaks of Shand's 'skill and great daring' and how, by 'the fearless manoeuvring of his troop, he covered the withdrawal of a column in the face of fire from four enemy tanks'...

 Major Shand also saw action in North Africa and in the battle of El Alamein was ordered to slip through enemy lines on a reconnaissance mission... 

 Confronted by a German motorised column that engaged his men with heavy fire, he covered the withdrawal of the 1st/6th Rajputana Rifles and organised the evacuation of 20 armoured cars, which would otherwise have fallen into enemy hands... 

 Again his huge valour was recognised by others, this time with a recommendation that he be awarded a Bar to his MC. The citation said he had proved himself a cavalry leader of 'the first order'... 

 He was later introduced to Winston Churchill, who admired Major Shand's medal – and commented on how thin he was... 

 In November 1942 his luck finally ran out when he was captured by retreating German forces... As reported by Yahoo!, Major Shand described the horrific moment in his autobiography: 'Something like a whiplash stung my cheek and Sergeant Francis beside me slumped to the bottom of the car with a large hole in his chest, killed instantly.'...