EIGHTY years ago they took part in the World War Two campaign that opened the path to peace and freedom in Europe.
In the early summer of 1944, 450,000 British servicemen and women saw service in the three-month Battle of Normandy in northern France, which began with the D-Day beach landings.
Eight decades on, The Many are now The Few.
Only 44 veterans are still fit and well enough to return to the beaches to honour the 22,442 killed under British command between June and August, 1944.
The youngest of them are now in their late nineties, but all are going back to Normandy to mark the anniversary of D-Day on Thursday, June 6.
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They will be travelling there with three charities – the Royal British Legion, Spirit of Normandy and Taxi Charity for Military Veterans.
Our tribute to the returning veterans marks the start of the 80th anniversary events which next week will see King Charles lead British ceremonies to remember everyone who took part in the momentous fight for freedom.
RICHARD ALDRED, 99
APPRENTICE mechanic Richard was 20 when he drove a Cromwell tank on to Sword Beach on July 15, serving with the Royal Armoured Corps, 5th Dragoon Guards.
He had volunteered for the Army because one brother was in the RAF — and had been killed in action — while his other brother was a lieutenant in the Navy.
After fighting in Normandy, Richard, from Callington, Cornwall, moved on through Belgium and Holland to Berlin.
Eighty years on, tears still well up in his eyes as he recalls those awful times.
Richard says: “We lost a hell of a lot of good, good people, and the Germans did as well.
“I had to bury a lieutenant and a trooper together. I knew them well, you know. It’s no joke. I was crying.”
But he remembers some good times, too — such as once hitting on an unexpected booze bonanza which he was later able to share with his crew.
He says: “We’re not heroes, We’re not brave.
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"If you’re in a tank crew, you stick together like glue.
"You mustn’t let your mates down, must you?
“Everybody occasionally has to get out to have a pee, which you can’t do in the tank.
"I got out of the tank and, bloody hell, just across the road there was a bombed-out pub.
"I had a pee, nipped across the road.
"By God, the bloody place was filled with booze.
"Well, it had several bottles kicking about.
"So, I grabbed two or three or four bottles.
“I took them back to the tank and got a rocket from Major John Ward Harris.
He said, ‘Don’t dare do that again, bloody place might have been booby trapped — but thanks very much for the booze’.”
Wren DOROTHEA BARRON, 99
The Women’s Royal Naval Service signaller trained D-Day troops to use semaphore flags to transmit messages in case radio communications failed.
Dorothea, of Bishops Stortford, Herts, said: “In Normandy next week I shall probably be in tears most of the time at the enormity of what the forces did.”
ROBERT ‘BOB’ GRAVELLS, 99
Able Seaman Bob served as a gunner aboard a DEMS — a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship.
On D-Day the Londoner was aboard a ship taking American and Dutch soldiers to Normandy, and said: “When they landed, the American soldiers just disappeared into the dawn light. And that was it.
“To this day, I never knew what did happen to them.”
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ALAN KENNETT, 100
Served in RAF ground crew, and on June 6 he was at RAF Station Ford in West Sussex, where a glider crew who had intended to land in France had touched down there instead.
Alan, from Lichfield, Staffs, recalls: “Apparently during the night their glider had broken loose from the towing plane and, believing that they were in France, they landed at Ford.”
Seaman FRED AYTON ,98
On D-Day, Fred was a Seaman Torpedoman on HMS Sweetbriar on convoy escort duty, carrying troops from England to Arromanches.
Fred, from Harrow, North West London, recalls: “The skipper read out, ‘England expects every man to do his duty . . . you are making history’.
"That was a bit frightening.”
DOUG BALDWIN, 98
Serving with the 6th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, Doug, from Caddington, Beds, went ashore on June 25 and recalls people cheering as his landing craft set off across the Channel.
He said: “I felt like a hero even before I landed in Normandy.”
He was captured on August 8 and spent the rest of the war as a PoW.
NORRIE BARTLETT, 98
Rejected as a Royal Navy signaller because of his colour-blindness, Norrie, from Blackwater, Hants, became a gunner instead.
On D-Day he fired at German lines from HMS Duncan to protect troops landing on Gold Beach.
He said: “I’ll be honest, we were all dead scared — I don’t mind admitting it. We had two chances: Get away with it or go under.”
Private HARRY BIRDSALL, 98
As a driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, he supplied docks equipment in the run-up to D-Day.
Harry, from Wakefield, West Yorks, was later sent to Germany and ended up evacuating prisoners from the Belsen concentration camp.
He says: “I just couldn’t get the horror of it all out of my mind.”
GILBERT CLARKE, 98
The RAF mechanic worked on aircraft taking part in D-Day and was studying new radar technology at a Cambridge air base on June 6 when a heavy droning noise drew him outside.
Gilbert, from Plaistow, East London, says: “It was hundreds of aircraft — you could hardly see the sky.
"Everyone started cheering and waving them on. That was when we first knew D-Day was under way.”
Gunner JOHN DENNETT, 99
He was aboard a Royal Navy landing ship that offloaded troops at Sword Beach on D-Day, then crossed back and forth until August.
John, of Wallasey, Merseyside, says: “Being a sailor, I’m glad I wasn’t a soldier.
"I don’t know if I could have charged off our landing craft with a gun or not.”
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RICHARD FORRESTER, 98
Londoner “Dickie” Forrester landed on Juno Beach on June 7 with the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, 4th Armoured Brigade, and fought through Normandy, Belgium and the Netherlands all the way to Hamburg.
Later a black cab driver, he says: “As time marches on it’s easy to not remember, but we mustn’t forget.”
QUEENIE EVELYN ‘ROBBIE’ HALL, 101
A clerk in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, Robbie, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, was engaged to an airman who died in the war.
She says: “Liberation for me was tinged with the fact that my boyfriend was killed.”
Craftsman LES HAMMOND, 99
Served with the Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), landing at Juno Beach on June 29, while attached to the 86 Anti-Tank Regiment.
Les, of Northampton, says: “People always say, ‘Did you land on D-Day?’ No, but there was a lot of hard fighting after.”
Able Seaman ROY HARRISON, 98
At 05:50 hours on D-Day, Roy’s ship HMS Diadem opened fire off the Normandy coast, clearing a path for landing craft and keeping enemy fire at bay.
Roy, from Amersham, Bucks, says: “There was constant firing and pandemonium, and we were at action stations for most of the day.”
Able Seaman RONALD HENDREY, 98
Ronald was a cordite-loader aboard HMS Ulster, which shelled German pillboxes at Gold Beach for hours on D-Day.
From Clacton, Essex, he says: “We were terrified.
“I’ve never known a ship go so quiet because everyone was thinking the same thing — ‘Is this my last day on Earth?’ ”
Stoker CHARLES HORNE, 98
Served aboard a Royal Navy minesweeper that cleared the waters of Omaha Beach on D-Day before American troops landed.
Charles, from Port Seton, East Lothian, says: “The noise was deafening.
"After it started, the shelling went on day and night and we never got any sleep.”
The noise from our guns, the German guns and those on our battleships was deafening
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Royal Marine JIM GRANT, 99
At 19 he manned an anti-aircraft gun as his ship escorted and protected landing craft carrying Canadian troops to Sword Beach before dawn on D-Day.
Jim, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, said: “The noise from our guns, the German guns and those on our battleships was deafening.
"I’ve been part deaf ever since.”
Gunner DONALD JONES, 99
The landing craft tank gunner reached Sword Beach at 08:00 on D-Day and recalls looking back across the Channel at thousands of ships of all sizes.
Donald, from Mold, North Wales, says: “You could have stepped from ship to ship across the sea.”
Able Seaman ALBERT KEIR, 98
On D-Day Albert, from Bakewell, Derbys, was in a Navy crew ferrying US troops on to Utah Beach and says: “At night the sky was lit up with different sorts of colours.
“The firing from the sea over our heads blasting the beaches was very bad. It’s very difficult to get it out of your mind.”
Private JIM KELLY, 97
Midlander Jim, from Sutton Coldfield, was 17 and one of the first Allied soldiers to storm France on D-Day, landing by glider just after midnight.
A machine gunner with the 1st Battalion Royal Ulster Division, he says: “I wasn’t frightened before D-Day. I thought I was untouchable.
"It was only after when I saw what the war was like.”
Private MERVYN KERSH, 99
Landed on Gold Beach on June 10 with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, then via France, Belgium and Holland and finally into Germany.
Mervyn, from Cockfosters, North London, says: “The landing was the biggest experience — landing on the coast with the intention of destroying the Germans.”
Gunner JOHN LIFE, 100
John, of Greatstone, Kent, was so seasick as he crossed the Channel with the Royal Artillery that at first he was glad to land on Sword Beach on June 6.
But he says: “On the beach I saw someone from my regiment shot dead straight away.
"That was the closest I got to not making it. I was lucky.”
ALAN McQUILLAN, 100
Landed on Juno Beach on D-Day +1 as part of RAF Servicing Commando Unit 3210, tasked with looking after aircraft involved in the Battle of Normandy.
Alan, from Kemble, Gloucs, says: “First thing we saw, seven or eight pairs of boots sticking out of these blankets.
"And then we realised they were dead soldiers.”
DAVID MORGAN, 101
Landed on Utah Beach on D-Day +5 as a Warrant Officer II with the Royal Signals to help set up a wireless link back to the War Office.
The retired civil servant, of Wendover, Bucks, recalls hearing that fighting in Europe was over in 1945: “I’d got through it, I was still alive.”
JACK MORTIMER, 100
Drove a Jeep on to Sword Beach on D-Day as a 20-year-old serving with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
Jack, from Leeds, recalls: “It was dangerous, there were snipers all around. It was noisy, smoky, smelly and I saw lots of casualties.
"When I go back there now, I cry.”
EUGENIUS NEAD, 100
Landed in Normandy in mid-June as part of a five-man tank crew whose role was to break German lines out from Caen.
Polish-born Eugenius was a member of the 1 Polish Armoured Division, part of the Polish Armed Forces that came under British Command from 1942.
He made his home in West London after the war.
Lieutenant PETER NEWTON, 99
He leapt ashore on Sword Beach in one of the first two British infantry divisions to land on D-Day, the British Assault Force 3rd Division, Royal Norfolk Regiment.
Peter, from Romsey, Hants, says: “Apart from the bodies lying in the water and on the beach, the landing was similar to the exercises we’d been practising.”
ALEC PENSTONE, 99
As an expert Royal Navy submarine detector, he listened out for U-boats while aboard HMS Campania during the first week of the D-Day landings.
After that, his aircraft carrier joined the Arctic Convoys, where one of his jobs was to help put fallen comrades over the side.
Alec, from Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, says: “A chain would be fixed to their feet, so when they went overboard they would be standing up.”
REG PYE, 100
Driver Reg landed on Sword Beach on June 20, 1944, with 224 Field Company Royal Engineers.
At the village of Vrigny, he gave a jam sandwich to a 14-year-old girl, who gave him her photo in return.
Reg, from Burry Port, south Wales, kept it in his wallet for 78 years before he tracked her down in 2022.
He says: “In the bleakest of times this bit of human interaction made a huge mark on my life”
Signalman HENRY RICE, 98
Arrived at Juno Beach on D-Day +5 to offload troops and supplies to Allied beaches from his Navy landing ship, HMS Eastway.
After the war he worked as cruise line steward, then Surrey Fire Service.
Harry, of Cranleigh, Surrey, will return to Normandy next week and says he will not be able to stop himself crying during the commemoration events.
ARNIE SALTER, 98
A crew member on a Royal Navy minesweeper which unloaded 400 anxious Canadian troops to Juno Beach on D-Day.
Arnie, from Bedworth, Warks, says: “We had to man the guns and began to shoot at anything we could. It seemed over within a few hours.
“Suddenly the beach was empty, except for bodies, like a bad dream.”
There were bodies that had been wounded and killed. It was absolute chaos and I didn’t even know I’d been there
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RICHARD TRELEASE, 99
He served on a Royal Navy motor launch whose crew fired towards the shore to provide cover for Canadian troops as they landed on June 6.
As its navigator and radio operator, Richard, from St Hilary, south Wales, would work out when their boat was within firing range.
He says: “I’d shout a countdown from ten to zero up the voice pipe and, when it got to zero, the majors would then shout to ‘Open fire!’ ”
Corporal DON TURRELL, 99
Crossed to Normandy with the 15th Scottish Infantry Division, 46th Highland Brigade soon after D-Day.
The Londoner recalls the voyage across the Channel: “We could see the cliffs at Dover disappearing, and I said, ‘I wonder how many of us are going to come back?’ ”
LES UNDERWOOD, 98
Able Seaman Les, who joined the Navy at 16, did not know he had been involved in D-Day until later.
He was switched from the Russian Convoys and sent to France as a gunner on a merchant ship.
Les, of Romford, Essex, says: “The skipper never told us what we were doing or where we were.
“There were bodies that had been wounded and killed. It was absolute chaos and I didn’t even know I’d been there.”
Also attending will be Able Seaman Charles Kavanagh, 97, Arthur Oborne, 100, Merchant Seaman James Forbes, 97, Douglas Hyde and Peter Smoothy, 99.
MARIE SCOTT, 97
MARIE was a 17-year-old VHF wireless operator with the Women’s Royal Naval Service [the Wrens] based at Fort Southwick, a secret communications centre built in the cliffs above Portsmouth Harbour.
On D-Day, the Wrens transmitted messages from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force at Southwick House [in Southwick village, a mile north of the fort] to the invasion force in Normandy.
Mother-of-two Marie, of New Malden, South West London, says: “D-Day for me was my point of maturity.
“The senior officers, General Dwight Eisenhower and General Bernard Montgomery, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey were all based in Southwick House and they would send information down to us to send out to the men.
“I was in the war. I could hear gunfire, cannon, machine-gun fire, bombs dropping, then shouting, then screaming — people screaming orders.
"These men were actually going on to the beaches. D-Day had started. What got me was the enormity of it all.
“I thought there were many young men dying on those beaches in their thousands.”
She adds: “I have been to Normandy three or four times.
"It will be emotional returning and wondering how many of the young men I listened to on the beaches that day survived.”
KEN HAY, 98
PRIVATE Ken came ashore on Juno Beach on June 23, with the 4th Dorset Regiment, part of the 43rd Wessex Division.
Less than three weeks later, on July 8 while on a night patrol, the young trooper was captured by German soldiers and became a prisoner of war.
Now Ken, of Upminster, Essex, recalls “all hell breaking loose”.
Lying in the dark, seeing tracer bullets from enemy guns, he said two prayers.
He says: “The first was, ‘Lord save me’. The other was, ‘If a bullet does get me, please let it be quick’.”
Nine of his comrades were killed and 16 escaped, including his brother.
Ken was among five men captured and sent off to slave in a Polish coal mine.
The next January, with the Russians approaching, the prisoners were all force-marched away. Many died and were left at the roadside.
Ken says: “On the march, I lay down to die — my leg was hurt-ing too much.”
But two pals came back for him.
He says: “They lifted me, an arm around each shoulder. If they hadn’t, I’d have just gone to sleep.”
Among the 22,442 names on the British Normandy Memorial is Dennis Circus, a young private who was one of the nine men killed when Ken was captured.
Ken says: “It feels strange. I can stand at his grave and say a prayer, but when you see his name it tears me up.”
CYRIL STANLEY ‘STAN’ FORD, 99
FROM the deck of HMS Fratton, 19-year-old Able Seaman Stan saw the armada of cruisers, battleships and destroyers preparing for D-Day.
He recalls: “I turned to my friend and said, ‘We’re not going to lose this war. We’ll frighten the enemy when they see this fleet’.”
On June 7 – D-Day plus one – Stan’s ship left Portsmouth carrying men and supplies to Normandy.
He says: “As we got closer to the beaches we were told, where possible on deck, to move to the seaward side rather than the side that faces land.
"They didn’t have to say it was because of the snipers – we all understood.”
For more than two months, HMS Fratton supported the invasion by carrying supplies and men.
But on August 18, it was hit by a torpedo.
Stan, from Bath, was on a gun position that was blown into the water, with him on it.
He says: “My ship went down in four minutes. If I’d been strapped in, I’d have gone to the bottom of the sea with it.
"All I could think was, ‘Stay afloat, Stan’.”
Dragged on to a rescue craft, he soon passed out with the pain, then later woke up in a field hospital on Gold Beach.
With a fractured spine, and leg injuries so bad he still wears callipers, Stan’s war was over.
The British Normandy Memorial over-looking Gold Beach has the names of 31 of his crew who died that day.
BERNARD MORGAN, 100
IT was during the tenth day of the biggest battle for Normandy that RAF sergeant Bernard received a letter — from the taxman.
His job was to receive coded signals on the battlefield and he was paid £5 a week — three times more than a regular soldier.
Bernard, who was 20, now recalls: “The taxman wanted his share, not just from me but all the sergeants in our unit.”
He arrived in Normandy on D-Day and 24 hours earlier, while embarking on June 5, he had been given a letter from the Commander of British and Allied Forces, General Montgomery, personally signed and dated in red ink.
Bernard, now 100, from Crewe, says: “These letters are very rare now because most of the blokes threw them over the side.”
After manning a landing-craft Bren machine gun, he arrived in Normandy at about 6.30pm on D-Day — and the worst fighting was over but dead bodies lay everywhere.
He says: “Gold Beach was one of the better landing points but I still vividly remember seeing bodies scat-tered all over the beach as I came ashore — that sight will stay with me for ever.”
On June 6 Bernard will remember three pals lost in the battle for Normandy — wireless operator John Baines, killed by friendly fire, and Robert Hall and Paul Langstaff, who died in an air attack on their truck.
JOE MINES, 99
PRIVATE Joe was meant to be helping to run the military post office — but because of his name the Army picked him to defuse mines.
Landing at Ver-sur-Mer on D-Day with the Hertford-shire Regiment, his first job was to clear the explosives from Gold Beach.
Joe, from Hornchurch, Essex, says: “One of my mates got machine-gunned and was cut in two pieces soon after we landed.
“There were five people in front of me who all got gunned down. I just got lucky.
“I had a German prisoner who had no uniform, no helmet, no weapon, no pack and an open shirt.
“He was speaking to me in German.
"Eventually we found out he was saying that at the next crossroads there was a tank, so to watch yourselves there.
“We had this second lieutenant who was so useless I wouldn’t have made him a lance corporal.
“He came up to me and said, ‘You can come up with me and take over the machine gun’.
“So, I’m thinking, ‘There’s a tank coming and he wants me to fire a bloody machine gun’.
“I might as well have thrown pennies at it.”
Joe adds: “I looked down and there’s one of our guys bleeding to death.
"I thought, I’m going to disobey his orders, and that’s what I did. I got hold of a stretcher and got him out.”
