A Lancaster war hero has returned home after being part of the 82nd D-Day commemorations in Normandy.
Sgt Richard Brock, who recently celebrated his 102nd birthday, joined fellow centenarians Marjorie Hanson (103) from Poulton, and Ken Benbow (100) from Garstang for the trip.
Richard was awarded numerous medals for bravery including the Legion d'Honneur, the highest military order of merit in France, after being part of the largest seaborne invasion in history.
He landed on the beaches at Normandy with the Allied Forces as they advanced into Nazi-occupied France in 1944.
Over the next 12 months he helped to liberate parts of France and the Netherlands, saw first-hand the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, narrowly escaped death after a missile landed on a cinema in Belgium, was part of the famous 'A Bridge Too Far' battle, and invaded Germany's second biggest city as Hitler's forces surrendered.
Richard was flown to Caen and then chauffeured by The Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, accompanied by Col. David Waters of Lancashire Armed Forces Association, their carers, and the Lord-Lieutenant of Lancashire, Amanda Jane Parker JP DL.
The service at the British Normandy Memorial was followed by plenty of calls for photos with the inspirational veterans, and a quick transfer to Bayeux Cemetery for a moving service.
Richard delivered the Kohima Epitaph and the Exhortation, before laying a wreath on behalf of all veterans.
The Kohima Epitaph is the epitaph engraved on the Memorial of the 2nd British Division in the cemetery of Kohima (North-East India). It reads: ‘When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.'
The verse is attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958), and is thought to have been inspired by the epitaph written by Simonides of Ceos to honour the Greeks who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC.
The Exhortation is said at Remembrance events before the Last Post is played and the Two Minute Silence. The extract is from a poem written by Robert Laurence Binyon called "For the Fallen", composed in September 1914, just a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War.
It reads: "They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, We will remember them."
A spokesperson for the Lord-Lieutenant’s office said: “Particular thanks go to BAE for their generous support, and their staff, ground and air crews, who were superb.
“It was a moving ceremony and a wonderful day with these fabulous and irrepressible heroes.”
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