Birmingham veterans mark D-Day landings in St Paul’s Square
Normandy veterans attended a final emotional service to mark 65 years since they stormed the beaches on D-Day.
Time has now taken its toll on the brave men who faced Hitler’s armies on the French coast and this is the last year the Normandy Veterans Association will officially hold its annual service.
At a moving ceremony in St Paul’s Square in the Jewellery Quarter yesterday, ex-servicemen and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Coun Chauhdry Abdul Rashid, laid wreaths at the site of the war memorial remembering the many thousands of men who laid down their lives during the Second World War.
Geoff Russon, 85, a survivor of the offensive who attended the service, said: “It’s an emotional service when we think of all the lads that this represents over there who didn’t come back or didn’t live a life like we did.
“I was 20 years old when I went to Normandy. I’m 85 now. Those lads we left behind haven’t enjoyed the kind of life that I have, so for me this is always a very emotional occasion.”
Geoff, from Cradley Heath, still remembers landing on the beaches that chilly morning. He said: “When we landed, the HMS Warspite was firing shells over the top of us. They said if you could hear them going over you then you were okay.
“We were frightened when we landed. Everyone was. I remember seeing hundreds of men lying dead on the beaches, that was my most vivid memory of that day.
