War heroes reunited

Eddie Wilson, 84, of Askam-in-Furness, and Ken Barnett, 83, from Swindon, will be enjoying a pint together in the West Country for old times' sake after 59 years apart.

Mr Barnett, who served with Mr Wilson in a four-man medical team, successfully used his local newspaper to find his old pal, prompted by the forthcoming 60th anniversary commemorations of D-Day on June 6.

The Swindon medic lost touch with his friend when he was posted to Egypt before they could say their farewells.

"I'm looking forward to seeing him," he said. "In war, in those circumstances, closeness builds up."

Both men served in the 37th Field Transfusion Unit where Mr Wilson was the driver and responsible for shuttling plasma to injured soldiers aboard his little refrigerated truck.

On D-Day they were attached to the No 10 Beach Group and woken at 4.30am with a grand breakfast possibly their last before boarding an American ship at Southampton. On landing, they bolted for a sand dune to take cover. Mr Barnett said the stretchers immediately starting arriving with personnel from a mine-clearing unit.

"Some were blinded, some lost arms. We just had to try and get them as comfortable as possible."

They waited on the beaches until the Germans were pushed back far enough to complete their mission of setting up a medical post in a church hall where they worked without sleep for four days.

"A lot of them didn't make it. People would come in and have their legs amputated," said Mr Wilson. "Some probably weren't too bad but a lot were very bad."

Yet despite the horror of the situation, Mr Wilson said fear was only at the back of his mind. "We did that much training in this country, it felt like they were firing blanks. You didn't feel it was going to happen to you."

The unit pushed further into Europe, through Holland and Belgium, before arriving in Germany and being summoned to Belsen.

Mr Wilson and Mr Barnett were among the first British soldiers to see the horror of the concentration camp where thousands of Dutch Jews were exterminated.

"They were just like these starving kids you see on the TV, stick thin. The only thing we could give them was soup because they couldn't eat anything. They were all women.

"We used to go into the huts in the morning and see how many were dead. Then this wagon would come with the SS prisoners who would bury them. I saw one grave there with nearly 1,000 bodies in," said Mr Wilson.

Years later, he began waking in the night yelling and experiencing black-outs, something his wife blamed on the trauma of his war-time experiences, particularly D-Day.

By 1945, the Field Transfusion Unit had survived to see VE-Day, when they cracked open the booze they had gathered from German officers' supplies and had chilled in their blood fridge.

Now the pair have another excuse to share a jar as they come together again to reminisce on good times as well as the extremely bad.

They will then be meeting up again to join the Millom branch of The Royal British Legion's trip to Normandy for the official D-Day commemorations in June.

Some 20 veterans from Furness and beyond are to return to the battlefields thanks to a £11,000 lottery grant from the Heroes Return scheme secured by Millom, the biggest grant in the country.

Among their number are a spitfire pilot who survived the long odds to complete 350 hours in the cockpit and a solider who risked strapping explosives to his body to transport them to a sea wall he was tasked with blowing up. Alongside them is Leon Monkman, 79, of Witherslack, who as an able seaman aboard HMS Tyler helped safely escort convoys of troops across the English Channel.

"There was such a mass of ships," he said. "I have never see as many ships in my life. It's a sight I will never forget."

Ian Jackson-Smith, treasurer of The Royal British Legion of Millom, said: "Every one of them is a hero because if it wasn't for their efforts 60 years ago we would all be speaking German. They are all amazing chaps and they all have stories to tell of this momentous day."