'I count myself lucky': D-day remembered on the 75th anniversary
Thousands of people are preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings at commemoration events in the UK and France this week. Senior politicians and members of the royal family as well as hundreds of veterans will attend ceremonies to mark one of the main turning points of the second world war and the biggest amphibious invasion in military history.
More than 200 veterans have boarded a cruise ship, MV Boudicca, charted by the Royal British Legion, to attend the events, while others are descending en masse on Portsmouth and Normandy. Here we hear the stories of those who were there on 6 June 1944 and others involved in this week’s commemorations.
Prisoner of war: “I looked at him. He looked at me. I put my hands up”
Percy Lewis, 96, a wireless operator with No 6 Beach Group, spent most of D-day sheltering in the sand dunes off Sword beach. After landing at 11am on a small landing craft, he had to wait for the rest of his battalion to come. “Now and again there were a few shells coming over, but all the infantry and tanks had gone,” he said. The remainder of the second world war, however, would not prove so straightforward for him.
In the first week in July, while posted with 1st Battalion Black Watch, “going up towards Rouen and having not seen ‘Jerry’ [a nickname given to Germans during the war] for two days”, he and his comrades dug in. As he set up his wireless near a barn, “Jerry started mortaring, and I got shrapnel in the left ankle. It was only a flesh wound, but it was blood everywhere.”
Lewis, from Guildford, was evacuated and treated in Staffordshire before returning, this time to the Netherlands. In October 1944, while advancing through the country, his platoon found themselves at night in a small village “somewhere in the Venray area” and occupied the crossroads.
But he had to retrace his steps to retrieve some wireless equipment. “I started walking back alone, rifle over my shoulder, and the moon had just come up behind my back. I got a fair way back. Someone shouted: ‘Halt.’ I said: ‘Friend.’ Nothing. I walked a bit further. ‘Halt.’ I said: ‘Friend.’ Nothing. I took the rifle off my shoulder.
“There was a row of cottages. A door was open. I thought: ‘I’ll make for that door.’ And just as I got to the door, Jerry stepped out with his rifle on me. I looked at him. He looked at me. I put my hands up. Two German paratroopers about two doors away pushed me into the middle of the road.
“I thought: ‘They’ll start shooting in a minute.’ Nothing happened. They took me round the corner, and down into the cellar. And it was full of German paratroopers cleaning
