EACH year Tom Cattle stops off on his way to the November Veterans' Rendezvous in Weymouth so he can place a cross on a friend's memorial grave at Preston.

The 81-year-old from Wareham knows that Jim Peavoy's real burial site is far away in a Rangoon war grave. But friendship is friendship, despite the passage of 60 years, and he misses his comrade.

Tom was with the 2nd Battalion the Dorset Regiment in Burma and remembers all too well what happened the day that his friend died.

He said: "It was March 10, 1945, near Mandalay during the battle to take Black Pagoda Hill. Jim was only 20.

"We had taken the hill and tried to dig in but you couldn't get down far because of rock. Jim and others tried to dig in on the forward side, the Japanese heard them and mowed them down with machine guns."

Tom went on to fight at the Battle of Kohima, where there were heavy casualties, later injuring a foot. The war ended shortly after he rejoined the battalion near Calcutta, where it was regrouping.

He said: "Remembrance Day is special for me because I remember my friend."

Up to 50 veterans also shared their wartime memories in the Pavilion Ocean Room where the November theme was war graves and Remembrance Day.

Those memories are still strong with 91-year-old Bill Chutter, of Great Western Road, Dorchester.

He survived 'three D-Days' with the invasion of Sicily, the invasion of Italy and the Normandy landings, where he came ashore on Gold Beach with the 1st Battalion the Dorset Regiment.

He said: "We lost 114 killed, wounded or missing in the first couple of days. Most of the dead are buried at Bayeaux.

"When people were killed they lay where they fell and you moved on, but I have been back since and found all the graves of the chaps that I knew."

Bill was in the Signals and vividly remembers the type of countryside they had to cope with in Normandy.

He said: "You were in apple orchards or little fields and there were barns, but you never went in them because they might be booby-trapped.

"I lost several friends that I had known for nearly ten years. I never knew how they died."

Bill, who was later personally decorated in Belgium by Field Marshall Montgomery for outstanding services, looks on Remembrance Day as a chance to remember those friends he lost.

He said: "Remembrance Day is something special, it certainly is. I lost several pals I trained with at the barracks in Dorchester in April 1935 and I'll always remember them."

Bill Avery, a despatch rider with the 4th Battalion the Dorset Regiment, landed on Gold Beach about three weeks after D-Day.

The 85-year-old from Blandford was among those who helped take the infamous Hill 112 north of Normandy.

He said: "We got virtually wiped out. We went in with about 900 men and came out with 80. I have quite a few friends buried at Bayeaux."

It was a period of tough fighting and he remembers at one point they were so far forward that he not only had to dig himself in 'but my motorcycle as well!'

He even lost one machine to a shell, but got another motorcycle the next day.

He said: "I shall use Remembrance Day to remember old friends who died. B Company was mostly drawn from Blandford district and there are only a few of us left now."

Those attending the event also heard that the 2006 Military and Veterans' Festival will be held from June 10-16 with a Service of Remembrance and parade on Sunday, June 11.