PROUD and grateful to be home after five years of fighting the Nazis, these are men from 1st Battalion, the Herefordshire Regiment.

The picture shows a party of soldiers marching along Broad Street, Hereford, in 1945.

They were led by Major WAP Crofts, who had served with them throughout the Second World War and had been awarded the Military Cross for valour in leading assaults on enemy positions, writes Andy Taylor, curator of the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum at Sulva Barracks, Hereford.

Tomorrow (Sunday, September 27) will be the 75th anniversary of that emotional parade at which the regiment was honoured with the Freedom of Hereford.