In yesterday's Daily Mail, Robert Hardman painted a poignant and breathtaking picture of D-Day with stories from some of the gallant few still alive. Today, he follows his heroes as they push into Nazi-held Normandy, witnessing both horror and humour on the way.
By the end of June 6, 1944, forever to be known as D-Day, Britain had lost 1,475 servicemen (plus one war correspondent, Ian Fyfe of The Mirror).
Thousands more lay wounded as the Allies consolidated their foothold on the first piece of mainland Europe to be liberated from Nazi rule. You will see a powerful illustration of that loss if you visit the new Normandy Memorial this summer.
There you will find 1,475 lifesize silhouettes standing alongside it. Yet, the airborne and beach landings of D-Day were merely the prelude.
By the end of the three-month Battle of Normandy, which led to the liberation of France, the total number of British lives lost was 22,440 servicemen and two women, Mollie Evershed and Dorothy Field, gallant nurses who went down with their hospital ship.
By the end of June 6, 1944, forever to be known as D-Day, Britain had lost 1,475 servicemenMilitary veterans salute the tide as it comes in on sand artwork depicting soldiers at Stone Bay in Broadstairs, Kent as a temporary tribute for the 80th anniversary of D-Day
In recent weeks, ahead of the 80th anniversary, the Mail has been talking to the dwindling band of those who were there, to capture the last voices of that mighty operation.
Certainly for Richard Brock, it isn't the beaches that stick in the mind, though he still remembers the ferocious broadsides from HMS Rodney as he was preparing to come ashore two days after D-Day itself. What haunts him is the memory of what came next.
Mr Brock'
S Capsules Test unit, 1st Battalion East Lancs, was immediately sent inland to reinforce the 2nd Battalion, which had been in the first wave. A patrol went forward that night to scout the lie of the land but it failed to return.
Mr Brock and his comrades were then despatched to find out what had happened. 'We found them all laid out dead with a Schmeisser [sub-machine gun] cartridge left on the sergeant's chest. The Jerries had let them through and then executed them on the way back,' he tells me at his home in Lancaster.
He was barely out of his teens. He had only just celebrated his 20th birthday while aboard the troop ship Ocean Vigil, bound for France. This was a brutal coming-of-age.
It was not long before they realised the sort of troops they were fighting. 'There were a few bodies in SS uniforms nearby so we knew it was them.
'Then we captured some of them. They were cruel - dogs. How anybody could treat people like they treated people… it was indescribable. They were the worst.'
Mr Brock frisked one of them. In the soldier's wallet he found a number of photographs. 'I said: 'What's that?' and he replied 'Meine mutter.' So I tore up his mother's picture in front of him and threw it on the ground.' He still feels ashamed at what he did. 'I felt guilty. I thought: 'You're going down to his level.' But I was only young.'
Then he found that the wallet also contained three photographs of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man and founding father of the SS. 'They showed Himmler with a guard of honour and this man was one of them.' Mr Brock decided to keep the snaps as souvenirs, carefully removing these crumpled keepsakes from a folder for me. Sure enough, there is the face of one of the most evil men in modern history.
Veteran Richard Brock from Lancaster Mr Brock's unit, 1st Battalion East Lancs, was immediately sent inland to reinforce the 2nd Battalion, which had been in the first wave
Days later, young Brock found himself embroiled in the long hard slog to capture a vital piece of high ground with the deceptively bland title of Hill 112. Another man involved in the battle was Ken Hay of the 4th Dorsets. 'Rommel once said: 'Whoever controls Hill 112 controls Normandy' and that was our first objective,' he tells me at his home in Upminster.
Young Private Hay did not set foot in France until five days after D-Day. He has fond memories of his troop ship, the Pampas.
'It was a brand new ship from Harland and Wolff, and I remember they produced the most marvellous fresh bread straight out of the oven.' Such are the things that leave their mark on an 18-year-old heading off to war. He remembers scrambling down a rope ladder into a landing craft in a heavy swell. 'My first picture of France was coming up the beach and there was a crossroads with nobody about except a military policeman with his white belt, red cap, white gaiters and white gloves, on point duty and stopping the traffic to let all the military across.'
His platoon was ordered to the outskirts of Port-en-Bessin. They rested in an orchard, where a bulldozer was filling a series of holes.
'Oh, that was sad,' Mr Hay recalls. 'We said to the driver: 'What's going on?' Apparently the Canadians had taken this orchard. There was a lean-to with a big vat full of cider - and it was very potent. And so the Canadians had found this. There was a mug and they had all swigged it and gone back into their foxholes to shake it off. And then Jerry counter-attacked. A lot of them got bayoneted, apparently.' The dead soldiers were (for the time being) to be buried in their own foxholes. Private Hay's unit pressed on towards Hill 112 and were not best pleased when a convoy from the Guards Armoured Division sped past. 'They were scooping up dust and so Jerry sees this big cloud of dust and thinks this must be a target. So the Guards caused it and we caught it. We got blasted.'
On they went, weaving their way through the ancient Normandy landscape. 'Somehow or other, I found myself in one of these sunken roads by myself. Then I saw in the ditch a whole section from a platoon - about eight men, all one behind the other. And I thought: 'They're asleep.' So, I went over to say 'What are you doing?' and I realised that the front man had no body below the waist. And then another was the same…' His voice falters. 'I'm not going into detail, but I saw these horrible sights.'
He says that he is always careful to omit these details when he gives talks in schools, as he often does.
'But you are still picturing it at the same time. I usually have a bad night after I talk about it. I'll have one tonight. But I've got a box of pills upstairs…'
Veteran Ken Hay served with the 4th Dorset Regiment at Juno BeachMr Hay did not set foot in France until five days after D-Day. He has fond memories of his troop ship, the Pampas
Young Private Hay (right) and his brother who serves in the same platoonAs the invasion force moved inland, things were no less treacherous out in the Channel. Geoff Weaving's ship was charged with helping the construction of the famous Mulberry harbour, the brilliant pop-up port that would keep the invasion supplied. He and his shipmates were told to smoke on the seaward side of the ship as they risked being shot by snipers if they faced the shore.
Peter Seaborn clearly remembers being part of a convoy on June 13, a full week after D-Day, when a German Junkers 88 swooped down and strafed his ship, HMS Waldegrave. 'We tried to attack it but it was so quick.'
Soon afterwards, he learned that the same plane had dropped a torpedo that sank the destroyer, HMS Boadicea, killing all but 12 of her 182 crew. He remembers the first sightings of German V-1 'doodlebug' flying bombs speeding overhead towards Britain - 'we weren't allowed to shoot them, they were too high' - and the grim sense of foreboding when he was below decks. 'We had one serious explosion. It felt like a mine or a shell.