29 September 2015 Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Earl Howe
15 British veterans were presented with France’s highest honour for their role in liberating the country in the Second World War.
A group of 15 British veterans have received France’s highest honour today for their role in the liberation of the country during the Second World War.
French Veterans Minister Jean-Marc Todeschini presented the Légion d’honneur to the veterans, many of whom took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944.
RAF code breaker Bernard Morgan, 91, was among those to receive the medal.
Mr Morgan said: “I feel very honoured to be considered for the Légion d’honneur, and to receive it from the French government.”
Mr Morgan described landing on Gold Beach at 6.30pm on 6 June 1944, aged 20, in his diary at the time:
I shall never forget seeing the beach littered with many dead bodies, some of whom had been shot or drowned and others carried in by the incoming tide. A very sad sight, never to be forgotten by a young 20-year-old airman seeing his first dead body.
The first night on land was a nightmare. We slept or tried to sleep, underneath our vehicles for some protection from continuous cross fire from the heavily fortified Atlantic Wall, which was blistering with guns. All night the sky was lit by tracers and heavy gunfire. We were glad to have survived a memorable day and felt very lucky to be alive.
The former Sergeant volunteered to join the RAF on his 18th birthday but was not called up until July 1942. He served in the Code and Cypher Section of 83 Group Control Centre, part of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, from September 1943 until the end of the war.
While his boat was on its way to Normandy, D-Day was put back a day because of the bad weather. They arrived off the coast too soon and were seven miles off the coast of Normandy on the night of 5 June.
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