‘All that was on your mind was getting through’: Greater Manchester’s D-Day veterans in their own words

80 years ago today, the allied forces of Britain, America and the Commonwealth launched the largest naval and air invasion the world had ever seen – D-Day.

The invasion of France by Allied forces was a major part of the effort to end World War II in Europe. Part of Operation Overlord (code name for the Battle of Normandy), the Normandy landings took place on June 6, 1944.

Allied forces fought against terrifying odds in what is considered the largest amphibious invasion in military history. Despite the large scale of the attack, it came as a surprise to Germany.

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A disinformation campaign led the Nazis to believe that the main plan was for the Allies to invade the continent in a two-pronged attack involving Norway and Calais. Even as the D-Day landings began, German commanders were convinced that they were merely a diversionary tactic before the actual invasion.

Operation Overlord did not end the war in Europe, but it began the process by which victory was eventually achieved.

Now eight decades on from the operation, many of those involved – who would have been young men at the time – have since died, those who still survive to tell their stories among the oldest members of our society.

But to honor those involved, we thought we’d revisit some of the veterans’ stories, as previously reported in Manchester Evening News to recall – in their own words – their experiences on D-Day and during Operation Overlord.

Norman Coleman

D-Day veteran Norman Coleman was awarded the Legion D’Honneur – France’s highest honor for his heroism in the operation. Norman was born in Stalybridge on 13 December 1922 and spent his early childhood in the Castle Hall area.

He once lived in a house that straddled Bolton’s Yard, which was made famous by Samuel Laycock’s poem of the same name. He went to St Peter’s School and took his first job at Clarence Mill in Cockbrook aged 14.

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Mr Coleman enlisted when he was 17, alongside his older brother Peter, in 1939. They fought side by side throughout the war – during the invasion of Sicily and Italy and then the liberation of France on the beaches of Normandy.

In 2014, Norman’s daughter Marion told the MEN: ‘Just before he landed he looked back and it looked like he might be going back to England, there were so many ships and boats in the Channel. The smell and the noise are something he. I can remember now.”

Norman later helped liberate Belgium and the Netherlands before heading to Germany to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When he returned to the UK, he worked in engineering and had three more children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Norman died in 2015 at the age of 92.

Harry Evans

Harry Evans was just 18 when he was called up to fight and turned 20 on the eve of the journey that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Speaking to MEN in 2014, the 90-year-old great-great-grandfather recalled preparing for the trip to Normandy.

“I knew what it was going to be like,” he said. “We were all very quiet, making jokes just to be happy, but everyone was scared to death.”

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A lance corporal in the South Lancashire Regiment, Harry was among the thousands of troops who landed on Sword Beach. “I was never afraid of water,” he said, despite not knowing how to swim.

“We had to go down these stairs and the waters rose to your chest. There was shelling overhead and we just had to get across the beach as fast as we could.”

Harry survived less than two weeks before being shot by a sniper. He was taken by Jeep to a nearby field hospital before being patched up and flown home from what he called “my 12-day war”.

“I thought a tree branch hit me,” he said. “I was put on top of a jeep and I couldn’t hold on, just with one hand. It was an experience, I didn’t think I would get there.”

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He had been shot in the chest, narrowly missing the heart, by a bullet that had traveled to the opposite side of the body. Holding it in his hand, he described how he “almost lost it several times” but now showed it to his five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren as a sign of his good fortune.

“I was very lucky, there was no doubt about it,” he said. “I appreciate that now. Times like these trigger your memories, but at the time there were so many people killed, all that was on your mind was getting over it.

Harry, who later married Maud and had two sons, Graham and Peter, made a return trip to Normandy on his 80th birthday to show his family where he fought.

Ernest Handley

Stockport D-Day veteran Ernest Handley was sent to Ver-sur-Mer during the Normandy landings. The 96-year-old served in the XXX Corps and the Royal Pioneer Corps and traveled through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

Great grandfather, born in Reddish in 1918, was drafted into the army in 1942. After training, Ernie was posted to 44 Company, Royal Pioneer Corps. Until June 1944 he was a corporal.

He finished the war as a sergeant major. Ernie embarked from the Port of London on the SS Neuralia in June 1944 before spending eight days at sea around Pas-de-Calais under fire from German artillery batteries.

His trip was part of a massive bait invasion. Speaking to the MEN in 2014, Ernie said: “They bombed like crazy in Calais.

“We had to wade through water up to our chins with 80 pounds on our backs while holding a rifle over our heads.”

His unit built bridges, repaired roads and worked on Mulberry Harbour. Ernie managed the cash payroll for 365 men in five different currencies in barns, tents and wherever he could find.

One night in a Belgian forest, during heavy bombing and a snowstorm, he dug a hole in the ground, covered it with planks, and worked by candlelight. Ernie was left heartbroken when he was sent a newspaper from home and read that school friend Archie Turner – whom he had seen weeks before – had been killed.

He said: “You had to brace yourself for the things you saw, but when it’s one of your friends, it hurts. I was scared, but somehow when you stand up for yourself, you find something inside.

“I always felt lucky that I wasn’t thrown straight into the action. I had a slightly guilty conscience. But what we did allowed the attacks to happen.”

Ernie, who married his late wife Gertrude in 1939, went on to have four children. Twins Michael and Roger were born the same month it was demolished in 1946.

Dougie Farrington

Among his many medals, Dougie Farrington, of Chadderton, Oldham, received the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest military honour, in recognition of his service to the liberation of Europe.

In an interview with the Royal British Legion in 2019, Dougie said: “My mum was very unhappy about me joining but I knew Hitler was evil, he wanted to enslave everyone and I didn’t like that . People should be free to do what they want and enjoy life.”

Dougie served in the 7th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers – his role as First Class Machine Gunner earned him an extra threepence a week. His battalion fought through Normandy and Holland to join the Battle of the Bulge which began on 26 December 1944 – the 19th anniversary.

He spent most of the day alone in a trench, watching the German paratroopers. Dougie recalled: “It was bitterly cold with six feet of snow and the Germans were all in white suits, you couldn’t see them and they were picking our lads off like flies, but we did the best we could.”

Just eight months later, as the Allies advanced into Germany, he was shot in the leg by a German sniper in the Reichswald Forest after becoming separated from the rest of his division. He crawled into a pigsty where he put on a field dressing and waited to be rescued

In an interview with Manchester Evening News in May 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, he said he learned the war had ended in a rehab facility as he nervously awaited news of whether he would be transferred back to the front.

Dougie said: “I had a job to do and I did it. And I was happy to give people their freedom back so they could laugh and dance and have fun like I do. Under Hitler, you wouldn’t have been able to. to do this.

“The surgeon told me that if the shot had been a quarter of an inch lower, I would have lost my leg. I said, “I’m glad you saved her, I love a dance.”

Dougie left the army in 1947 after serving in Dusseldorf when the war ended. He met his future wife, Alice, at a dance. They had two daughters, Anne and Fay, and a son, Melvin.

Alice died aged 85 after the couple had been married for 66 years. Dougie Farrington died in 2023 at the age of 97.