D-Day veterans from Coventry share incredible memories as city commemorates 80th anniversary

This week marks 80 years since D-Day, a huge turning point in the Second World War. And sadly it’s likely to be the last major D-Day anniversary attended by veterans who were there as only a few now survive.

Recently we reported on the funeral of a local D-Day veteran. Hundreds turned out to give him a proud send-off after an appeal on social media.

D-Day began on June 6, 1944 and the landings on the beaches of northern France that day were the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Read more: Coventry’s fallen D-Day soldiers to be honoured on D-Day 80

Read more: D-Day veteran's sadness as he returns to Normandy for D-Day 80

It marked the beginning of the liberation of France and western Europe from the occupying Nazi forces.

We’ve taken a look at the stories of just some of Coventry’s D-Day heroes. Many shared their memories as part of the 65th anniversary of D-Day in 2009 when the Coventry Telegraph travelled to Normandy as part of a special commemoration.

We’ve shared their stories below and thank them for their service, and the sacrifice of those who never came home.

Cecil Jeffcoate

Aged just 21 Cecil, from Bulkington, arrived on the shores of France as part of the Airborne Forces. He found himself at Pegasus Bridge just hours after it had been taken from the Germans as part of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment.

They helped keep it from recapture from Nazi troops, protecting the British 3rd Infantry Division’s approach to Sword Beach in the process.

Their courage was captured forever in the Hollywood film The Longest Day, which starred John Wayne, Richard Burton, and Richard Todd.

Frank Golightly

Frank, from Binley, was just 19 when he took part in the Normandy landings. After surviving the sixth day of the landings he made his way across Nazi-occupied Europe through Holland and Belgium, before being one of the Allied troops to help take Berlin.

Speaking of his time on the Normandy beaches, he said: “Everyone was just in a big muddle.

“I should think we were landing for about half an hour, but I was only a kid. You didn’t have time to think.

“Your eyes would just be looking all over the place.”

After the war, he worked as an engineer in Africa before returning to Coventry and marrying Margaret, his childhood sweetheart.

Aged 85 in 2009 he was given a roaring send-off at his local pub, the Bell Inn in Tile Hill, before moving to a care home on doctors’ advice.

Don Ould

Aged just 19, Don fought night and day for five days as part of the 6th Airborne Division and was one of just 55 men to survive out of 239. He cheated death when, not long after landing, a crossfire bullet burst through his backpack.

The father of three spoke in 2009 of the importance of keeping alive the memories of the Second World War, and returned to Normandy every year for 35 years to remember his fallen comrades.

For the 65th anniversary, he visited Ranville War Cemetery with his daughter Lesley and grand-daughter Cerys, then aged 10.

Paul Rucki

Paul wasn’t born in Coventry - but he was a proud adopted son of the city. Aged 14 he was torn from his family in his native Poland and sent to an internment camp in Ukraine. He escaped and fled to Britain after stowing away on board a merchant ship.

In the UK he teamed up with the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment and in the months after D-Day he and his comrades were sent to France where they fought their way through the continent.

After the war, in 1955, he was reunited with his parents in what was then Czechoslovakia. By then he had made Coventry his home, and worked at Coventry Colliery in Keresley. He married and had four sons and died in 2011.

In 2009 he wanted to attend D-Day commemorations in Normandy but was too ill to travel. Coventry Telegraph photographer Mark Radford went in his stead and placed a small cross on Sword Beach on Mr Rucki’s behalf.

Don McArthur

Part of the Parachute Regiment’s 9th Battalion, Don McArthur and his comrades risked everything in a raid on Merville Battery to silence German guns which were entrenched in almost-impenetrable bunkers.

If they hadn’t succeeded then many more of the troops who stormed the beaches on D-Day would have been killed. Don, of Canley, was captured by enemy soldiers within 10 days of landing and was a prisoner of war until being liberated by the Russians on St George’s Day 1945.

Aged 86 in 2009 he was honoured by the villagers of Melville for his bravery.

Gerald Ledger

Gerry was a member of the Airborne 8th Division and jumped into enemy territory on D-Day to put out landing lights to the second wave of paras. In 1948 in Hannover he met German-native Gerda at a dance, and the pair fell in love. They set up home in Coventry where they went on to have five children.

Gerry later served as secretary of the Coventry branch of the Parachute Regiment Association and he and Gerda often returned to Ranville War Cemetery before his death in 2006.

In 2009 Gerda, then aged 80, had hoped to visit one last time for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, but was too unwell to travel. Coventry Telegraph reporter Michael Corley went along and laid a wreath on her behalf.

Gary Garrington

As a fearless 17-year-old Gary was parachuted into Nazi-occupied France and landed almost a mile from Pegasus Bridge. He was dropped into a quarry as part of the 7th Light Infantry Parachute Battalion and scrambled out to make his way to the bridge, which had to be defended if D-Day had any chance of succeeding.

Later he helped kick down the door of one of the first buildings to be liberated.

Describing the operation he said: “On the way there we came across an empty machine gun nest that had been manned by Germans. Next to it was the glider that had knocked it out.

“When we got to Pegasus Bridge there was a lot of gunfire. We walked across to Café Gondrée, which was all shut up.

“We kicked down the door to claim the place as a first aid post.

“Mrs Gondrée was handing out wine to anybody who wanted it.”

He then remembers seeing movie star and soldier Richard Todd, Colonel Richard Geoffrey Pine-Coffin and Major John Howard, involved in a serious conversation.

A member of the same battalion as Gary, Todd was one of the first British officers to land in Normandy.

The Irish-born actor went on to play Howard in the film The Longest Day in 1962, with another actor playing Todd.

Gary recalled: “I heard them talking about getting down between the river and the canal and then down to the beaches to meet up with the Commandos.

“When they saw me listening Richard Todd told me to clear off.

“All the time there was sporadic fire.”

After making his way to the nearby village of Bénouville, he said he shot at three German guards to liberate a monastery, which was sheltering a significant number of children.

He added: “Strangely I was never frightened. As an apprentice steeplejack, I’d developed a kind of confidence in the face of danger.

“I did see one guy crying, but for me the adrenaline was pumping.

“Of course it upset you when you lost someone, but there was always something going on – you had to keep your wits about you.”

Once Germany had been conquered he was sent to India and then to south-east Asia to settle matters with the Japanese and to pick up prisoners of war.

Later he settled in Willenhall with wife Glenys and the whole family attended the 60th anniversary of D-Day in 2004. Sadly Glenys died shortly afterwards but he returned for the 65th commemorations in 2009 with his son and two grandsons.

Arnold Salter

Aged 17, Arnold’s task on D-Day was ferrying hundreds of troops to the coast of Normandy. He put ashore 400 Canadian soldiers on Juno Beach, one of the five main landing sites.

Speaking in 2009, the then-85 year-old said: “We all started off from the Isle of Wight at night with no lights. We got there just after 7am. It was a very choppy crossing.

“All the soldiers were kept below. All you could smell was the sick. Lots of little boats had foundered near France, but we were ordered not to stop for them.

“We were about the second wave of boats to hit the beaches. The bullets started flying when we were just a few hundred yards from land.

“I helped on the guns shooting at aircraft overhead while the boys piled out. There were a lot of bodies in the water and on the beach. You couldn’t touch the corpses because of mines.

“I remember thinking ‘what the hell is all this?’, and then getting ordered about and having to take it all in my stride. It all seemed over within a few hours. Suddenly the beach was empty, except for the bodies. It was like a bad dream.

“You really feel it on Poppy Day and when you go back there.”

After the war, Arnold, who grew up in Leamington and Coleshill before moving to Coventry, went on to have a family, including two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Sam Currie

Sam Currie was born in Motherwell, Scotland, in 1922 and moved to Coventry when his father Gavin found work at the coal mine in Binley.

Gavin was killed when a bomb hit the family home in Walsgrave Road, and Sam and his twin brother Ken were both injured. They, along with older brother Jim and mum Marion, went to stay with relatives in Scotland for a month, returning on what was a fateful day for Coventry: November 14, 1940, the day of the Coventry Blitz.

Sam joined the Royal Navy in 1942 as a mechanic. He first spent time fixing patrol boats and minesweepers before being assigned to landing craft carrying tanks and soldiers ahead of the invasion.

In his memoirs he describes how his craft took two direct hits as they approached Arromanches beach and a chunk of shrapnel tore through his arm.

Aged just 21 at the time, Sam spent the next 12 hours huddled behind a tank as German planes machine-gunned the beach around him.

Sam survived D-Day and returned to Coventry where he worked at Peugeot and raised a family. He retired in 1984 and died in August 2012.

Here’s his recollection of that fateful day…

The mission was vastly underestimated. To find a piece of empty beach in the first place was not an easy task, so the skipper headed for a point where the previous LCT (landing craft: tank) had just reversed.

The tanks began to inch forward in anticipation of finding firm ground. The first tank jerked upwards, and the ship shuddered as an explosion just beneath the descending beaching doors slewed our progress.

The doors jammed and the engines and steering gear failed to respond. A mine had disabled the ship. The soldiers took the offensive, trained the tank guns on the cliff and opened fire.

We still had forward motion and the first tank had regained enough balance to ram the door. It became free and fell onto firm sand and, one by one, the tanks careered up the beach, disappearing in front of their own exhaust fumes.

I had no idea of their fate, I was too busy with our stricken ship. As if to avenge the disgorging of our tanks at the Germans, their heavy artillery focused on our small craft. Two direct hits saw the end of 2052 and most of the remaining crew.

The first shell landed just forward of the bridge, obliterating all within and most of the forward part of the ship disintegrated into lumps of flying metal and exploding ammo. A vivid flash to my left caught my eye and in the next instant the second explosion burst my eardrums.

An order: “Stop all engines”. I jerked my right hand on the levers, but nothing moved. I tried again, still nothing.

Confused, I glanced down at the telegraph, but my attention was diverted to the bright dripping crimson on my sleeve. British troops disembark at Arromanches, code named Gold Beach

The shrapnel was buried deep into my biceps, shattering bone and tearing flesh, and blood was gushing from the wound. With my left hand I pulled the telegraph handles to stop the engines and cradled my right arm. I felt nothing. Nausea then blackness.

My body had shut down to nullify the pain, but in this unconscious state my senses were forced to function. I was dragged to my feet and we ran towards the open bow door and onto the sand: “Come on Sam, let’s get out of here.”

I could hear the whining engines of the Stukas diving and strafing the beaches, watching in fascination as the sane leapt into the smoke-laden air in rapid succession to my left and to my right, not really caring. It was just a dream. My good left arm was clinging onto someone’s shoulders, my right arm hanging limp by my side and, half running, half dragging, he managed to find a disabled tank that offered protection.

Dumping me under the splintered tracks my rescuer ran off. In my dream state I waved him goodbye and smiled, wishing him luck and life. I waited for that Stuka to finish me off, and then my rescuer’s face reappeared from out of the smoke with a medic who strapped my useless arm to my side and gave me morphine.

I tried to focus on the face of my rescuer, but only a deep sleep covered my eyes and mind. That was the last thing I remember of that day. I awoke later. A day? Two days? Don’t know, but it was all quiet, eerily quiet, on a camp bed in a tent away from the beach, comfortable and safe.

Relaxing, I closed my eyes. I had survived, where thousands had not. For six months I lay in that hospital bed in Tilbury. The broken arm was set and most of the shrapnel had been removed, skin grafted over the gaping wounds and pints of blood pumped into me.

I was declared unfit for sea service and after a full recuperation I was drafted to Bristol to a base mobile unit. I met Doris. (His wife) The phone rang in the hallway of our house in Wyken on a quiet Sunday afternoon in January 1986.

I put down the paper, went to the hall and lifted the receiver and said “hello”.

“Is that Sam Currie?”

Survivors from a landing craft which sank off Omaha Beach, Normandy, come safely ashore on a life raft (Image: Weintraub/Keystone/Getty Images)

“Yes,” I replied.

“At last. Been trying to find you for ages. This is Chris. Chris Johnson. Remember?”

Lips moved but no words came out and tears welled in my eyes. I could not speak. I placed the voice back on Arromanches beach: “Come on Sam, let’s get out of here.”

Doris took the phone off me as I sat on the stairs and silently wept. She took Chris’ number and promised him that I would ring back soon and Doris sat next to me holding my hand, in silence.

I recovered and phoned Chris and spent the next hour just talking. Close, as always, was Doris.