D-Day Veteran Awarded Legion d'Honneur

An 89-year-old D-Day veteran is to be awarded France's highest honour.

Nearly 71 years after he helped secure a beachhead on Juno beach, former Royal Marine Ted Turner will receive the Legion d'Honneur at a ceremony next week.

As an 18-year-old Ted sailed across the English Channel in a landing craft with the Allied fleet, as part of the largest seaborne invasion in history.

“It was very quiet, no one spoke,” said Ted. “Then when we got close to the beach, the Germans started firing and it was pretty noisy. I was used to it, as my dad had been in charge of the Firewatch in Portsmouth, so I’d heard air raids and gunfire anyway.

“I wasn’t frightened. I was only young, so it felt a bit like an adventure to me, even at that stage. We landed the Canadian engineers and their equipment on the beach and then backed off, so we could see what was going on. Some landing craft were hit and started sinking, some Canadians were being shot around us.

“We slept on the beach that night, and I remember a German plane coming over and flying very low. We were all firing at it. The next day, we started unloading all the ships by landing craft. Most of the boxes we unloaded seemed to be food.

“The next day, the Canadians dug a trench for the dead bodies and covered them over. But we saw a few bodies still floating on the tide, even a week after D-Day.”

After spending six weeks in Normandy Mr Turner also served in Germany, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Japan after the end of the war. 

He will receive his award from Captain Francois Jean, the Consul Honoraire of France, on behalf of French president Francois Hollande at the Royal Marines Museum in Southsea.