Moment 9 WW2 heroes mark 81st anniversary of D-Day with emotional trip to Normandy
FOUR World War Two heroes flew by private jet to France yesterday to mark the 81st anniversary of D-Day.
They joined five other veterans who were well enough to attend a moving service at the British Normandy Memorial.
Last year more than 40 heroes were there for the landmark 80th anniversary of the day Allied troops stormed Normandy’s beaches to liberate Europe.
Yesterday, The Sun was given exclusive access to fly with a quartet of veterans — all of them aged 99 and over — on a sleek 50-seat Embraer jet from Warton Aerodrome, Lancs.
Among them were Sergeant Richard Brock, now 101, and Able Seaman Ken Benbow, who turns 100 next week.
They were both at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Ken was off the north French coast on HMS Crane, and saw men die in the water all around him.
Richard, a driver with the East Lancashire Regiment, came ashore with 130 comrades — only 19 returned home.
He was honoured to pay tribute to the fallen yesterday.
The retired master butcher, from Lancaster, said: “When I landed on the beach just below where the Normandy Memorial stands now I was a young man of 20 who thought every day might be my last.
“I cannot believe here I am at 101. The heroes are the ones who died, some of them in terrible circumstances.
“We are just their spokesmen. Hopefully we will be able to come here one more time.”
The jet was provided by BAE Systems, which employs 12,000 people in Preston.
Also on board the flight to Caen Airport were former Fleet Air Arm Petty Officer George Boothby, 100, and Marjorie Hanson, 102.
She, like the late Queen Elizabeth II, served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and helped supply the D-Day landings.
The nine veterans were joined by Defence Secretary John Healey for an emotional ceremony at the memorial, inscribed with the names of more than 4,000 soldiers under UK command who were killed on D-Day.
Mr Healey listened in awe to the veterans’ stories.
He later told The Sun at the Bayeux War Cemetery: “The lesson to draw from the Second World War is never again can we contemplate the huge human and economic cost that it inflicted.
“We see that in the darkest, strongest terms in these cemeteries.
“What it says to me is that with the allies that we forged in the Second World War, we must band together and we must be strong enough to deter any adversary, any aggression that might be directed at us in the future.”