Mission accomplished! Hero, 96, raises £50k for a D-Day memorial
ONE of the last D-Day veterans has completed his “final mission” to secure a memorial for every comrade that died in the heroic battle.
Harry Billinge, 96, said it was his last duty to support a tribute recording the names of all 22,442 service personnel who died under British command on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.
The construction of a national memorial in Normandy has been a long-held ambition of veterans, frustrated that Britain alone among the main wartime allies did not have one.
And Harry, who collected more than £50,000 towards it, said it will feel like “mission complete” when he watches the unveiling on a special broadcast on June 6 – the 77th anniversary of D-Day. He said: “My greatest wish has been to see this memorial built in my lifetime. It is our last duty to our lost comrades. I have devoted my life to the folks that never came home and this is the culmination of that.
“I am 96 now and I know I don’t have much longer. I cannot go on for ever but I have achieved what I wanted, to get a permanent recognition of the names of 22,442 men who were killed on that awful day.”
The British Normandy Memorial, designed by British architect Liam O’Connor, cost nearly £30million, funded by the British government and private benefactors like Harry.
It stands on a hillside overlooking Gold Beach, one of the landing areas.
Harry, of St Austell, Cornwall, said he cannot attend the unveiling but said
it will still be an emotional day. He was just 18 and serving with the Royal Engineers when he was part of the first wave on Gold Beach.
He said the hell he went through that day has never left him and has dedicated the rest of his life to making sure the sacrifices were remembered.
He said: “I will be amongst friends and it will be a very emotional day. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get this memorial done and have collected a lot of money. I am very glad to have finally done it and lived to see the day.
“It is impossible to put into words, but I lost a lot of good pals on that terrible day. I have many friends whose names will be on the memorial and I will be thinking about all of them. Some things are impossible to forget and I won’t for as long as I live.”