Rod Stewart sings his hit Sailing to D-Day veterans ahead of 75th anniversary
ROD Stewart last night sang We Are Sailing on a boat taking 250 Normandy veterans back to the D-Day beaches.
Seventy-five years ago the old soldiers, sailors and airmen – now all in their 90s – were preparing to invade France to free Europe from Nazi occupation.
And yesterday they boarded a ship, specially chartered by the Royal British Legion, to take them back across the Channel as Rod's wife Penny Lancaster took photos for Hello! magazine.
During the week they will visit Dunkirk where more than 330,000 Allied troops were evacuated in 1940.
They return to Portsmouth on Wednesday, where the Queen and US President Donald Trump will pay tribute to their bravery.
And on Thursday, June 6, the 75th anniversary of D-Day when 150,000 landed in France, they will meet Prince Charles at a ceremony in Bayeux.
A Sea Cadets band played to Frederick Adamson, 99, from Coningsburgh, South Yorks, as he walked aboard with his grandson Philip Knight.
Frederick, who served with the Kings Own Light Infantry said: “What a wonderful reception. We certainly didn’t have a reception like that 75 years ago. It will bring back so many memories. ”
Another of the veterans on the ship, John Roberts, 95, went on to become the captain of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.
Later John, from Whitstable, Kent, became a Rear Admiral of the Fleet but during D-Day he was a Sub Lieutenant on HMS Serapis.
He said: “On D-Day I watched from the deck as 500 planes and gliders filled the sky and dropped paratroopers into Normandy. I was a young sailor and never seen anything like it in my life.
Read the remarkable stories of the returning veterans from our superb souvenir pullout
- What happened on D-Day, as told by the heroes
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- D-Day veteran remembers not caring about the German loss of life but how seeing the horses being killed really stuck with him
- Wren officer recalls how she found out her secret fiancé had been killed on Sword Beach
- One of Britain's last surviving D-Day heroes talks of liberating France with a fold-up bike and a misfiring gun
- Two fearless D-Day veterans in their nineties are to parachute into Normandy, 75 years after they first landed there
“It is important we never forget the sacrifices that young men made in Normandy in 1944.”
Jim Docherty, 93, from Glasgow only told his family five months ago that had had even been at D-Day.
He served as an 18-year-old Able Seaman on HMS Obedience, one of 5,000 ships involved in the campaign.
His son John, 67, said: “It was only when Dad saw that the British Legion were taking veterans back to Normandy that he told us he had been there. We knew he had been on the Arctic Convoys but he had never mentioned D-Day. ”
Sprightly Joseph Weaver, 97, a former Bombadier in the Royal Artillery who landed in Normandy three days after D-Day to man an ack ack battery, danced in the arrivals hall.
He says: “I went back to Normandy to remember my fallen comrades for the 50th, the 60th and 70th anniversaries. I could not miss the 75th. We must never forget them.”
Before Normandy he had manned guns trying to protect the city of Coventry against the German blitzkrieg.
Tears in his eyes, Harry Cullen, 96, from Wigan, Lancs, raised a glass to his friends and comrades who did not return.
Harry, who served with the Royal Armoured Services Crops attached to the Canadian Army, said: “God bless those who didn’t return. I’m nearly 97 years old and I think about those lads every day.
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“I’m not a great swimmer but I would have happily swum 95 miles back to Portsmouth to avoid the sights I saw.”
Forces Sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn sent a specially recorded message to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings.
In the message recorded for The Royal British Legion, Dame Vera, who is 102, said: “It will be nostalgic and sure to bring back lots of memories. Rest assured we will never forget all you did for us.”
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