D-Day landings: Veterans make their final pilgrimage to honour friends who never came back

Ted Cordery was a 20-year-old in the Navy when he stood on the upper deck of HMS Belfast and watched as dozens of men drowned around him.

The 95-year-old, who travelled to Normandy with 250 other veterans aboard the Royal British Legion-chartered cruise ship MV Boudicca today, said: “All the things I’ve seen, and the mutilated bodies of men who have served their country, still make me cry.”

Another who made the pilgrimage to Normandy was Harry Billinge, 93, who was one of the first to land on Gold Beach at 6.30am on June 6, 1944, as an 18-year-old Royal Engineer.

He went to see how thousands of pounds he has raised is helping to build a memorial. Mr Billinge said: “It made a big impression on me that I am unable to forget today. I wanted to help all the fellas that never came back.

“When I heard about the monument I thought ‘This is what I’ve been kept for — to collect for that.’ I had to do that, it was a must. But I shan’t be going again I don’t think. This is my swansong.”

A bronze sculpture of three advancing soldiers overlooking Gold Beach was unveiled today, marking the beginning of construction of the British Normandy Memorial onto which the names of all 22,442 who died under British command in the D-Day landings and Battle of Normandy will be inscribed.

Mr Billinge, who grew up in Petts Wood in Kent, was one of seven British D-Day veterans laying wreaths, alongside Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron.

He told how a friend, Lance Corporal Joseph Neades, died in his arms on the beach, adding: “Don’t thank me and don’t say I’m hero. I’m no hero. I was lucky. I’m here.

“All the heroes are dead and I’ll never forget them as long as I live.”

Also laying flowers was Ronald Clements, a petty officer in the Royal Navy on HMS Mountsea, which protected the landing convoys from gunfire.

Mr Clements, 98, from Whitstable, said it was “fantastic” that the memorial is being built, adding: “It should have been done long ago but it’s never too late.”