Fearless D-Day veterans to parachute into Normandy 75 years after first landing
TWO D-Day veterans are to parachute into Normandy — 75 years after first landing there.
Harry Read, 95, and John Hutton, 94, will take off from Duxford, Cambs, in a Dakota aircraft before making tandem jumps over Sannerville.
The great-great-grandfather said the forthcoming descent - after which he will visit fallen comrades in cemeteries - will be tinged with sadness.
Former Royal Signaller Harry, of Bournemouth, said: “In my heart I’ll be thinking of my mates.”
Mr Read said: "I will enjoy the jump. There are very real and definite pleasures in parachuting."
"It might be a little bit tricky, but I'm willing to have a go."
"But also in my heart I will be thinking of my mates."
"I get very moved when I think about them."
"I have lived one of the most fulfilled lives that it's possible for a person to live and they haven't."
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"I will stand in that cemetery and I will be speechless and I'll weep."
Presented with the Chevalier medal - by order of the Legion d'Honneur - for the role he played in the operation as part of the 6th Airborne Division, Mr Read remembers the flight over was so turbulent they could barely stand, adding: "It was like riding a bucking bronco."
John, of Larkfield, Kent, was in the 13th Lancs Parachute Battalion.
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