MY GREAT ESCAPE, BY BERNARD THE D-DAY RASCAL
EXCLUSIVE: ‘I was naughty but I had to be there’... for the first time, Britain’s favourite runaway tells his full amazing story
I only told my wife Irene about my plan. She knows just what I’m like
EXACTLY like the original seaborne operation 70 years earlier, everything depended on secrecy.
But now for the first time, we can tell the full extraordinary story of D-Day veteran Bernard Jordan’s one-man expedition to the beaches of Normandy which has captured the nation’s imagination as ‘The Great Escape’.
‘I can be very secretive when I want to be and when I set my mind to do something, I do it. This is what us Normandy veterans are like,’ said Mr Jordan, speaking for the first time.
Yesterday the 89-year-old former Royal Navy Lieutenant arrived back home at his care home in Hove, East Sussex, to a hero’s welcome, after eluding his carers to attend Friday’s D-Day commemorations in France.
And The Mail on Sunday can reveal how the man who also braved the Atlantic and Arctic convoys, deployed cunning and deception to ensure his mission did not fail.
Hiding his medals under his coat, he swore his wife Irene to keep mum, picked up two Iceland carrier bags – and calmly walked out of The Pines retirement home where they both live, as if he was just off to the shops.
Instead, he walked to Brighton railway station, boarded a train for Portsmouth Harbour and bought a one-way Brittany Ferries ticket to Caen, Normandy.
He explained: ‘ In the months before this year’s anniversary, I had been trying to get on an official trip to Normandy and my care home staff were helping me, but I didn’t have the necessary security passes.
‘I thought that was that. Everyone had done their best for me. The staff at the care home had tried very hard to get me on an official trip.
‘But then the day before D-Day, I saw all the TV coverage and thought I had to go to Normandy anyway and be part of it. I was naughty and secretive, I didn’t tell the care home staff what I was planning to do. I only told my wife Irene who is in the home with me and knows what I’m like. I swore her to secrecy and told her where I was going.
‘On Thursday, I put my coat over my Navy medals and walked out of the home in the morning as usual. I live there independently so I come and go as I please.
‘I walked to the station and bought a return ticket to Portsmouth. When I got there, I bought a single ticket for the ferry over to Normandy.
‘I got onto the boat on my own and sat down. I was carrying two plastic bags and my passport.
‘I was feeling a bit lost and lonely on the boat so I was glad when I was approached by a friendly woman and her family,’ he told friends.
At that point, as so often happens in warfare, fate lent a helping hand in the shape of retired schoolteacher Christine Orrell who with her family was accompanying three other veterans to France and thought Mr Jordan, sitting with his medals slightly askew, looked a little lost.
Christine, 66, from Sevenoaks, Kent, said: ‘I saw Bernard wearing his blazer with his medals pinned proudly to his chest, and glinting under his coat, but not quite straight.
‘He was carrying two carrier bags, one in each hand.
‘He looked a bit confused by his surroundings and he was alone, so I went over to talk to him. He explained that he had come over at the last minute after failing to get on an official trip.
‘There was no way I could let him continue on his own. And as I was with a party of three veterans, I thought it best that he tagged along with us.
‘I talked to him slowly, trying to piece together who he was, how he had come to be on the ferry on his own and where he lived.’
Mrs Orrell and her brother Jonathan, 60, have been making an annual pilgrimage to Sword Beach at Ouistreham for several years in honour of their late father Major Bob Orrell of the Royal Engineers, who was mentioned in dispatches after seizing a vital German com- mand and control centre in the town, now turned into a museum called Le Grand Bunker.
On each trip, the Orrells bring along veterans who are not part of official groups, so it was only fitting that they bumped into Mr Jordan and took him under their wing.
Mr Jordan, one-time Tory Mayor of Hove, who later defected to Labour, added: ‘The Orrells looked after me. They were so kind to me and showed me where to go in Normandy and they let me stay in a hotel room in Ouistreham with an RAF veteran who was with them. I can-
not thank them enough. I had no money, but they gave me some and they even bought me clothes to wear for my trip.’
Mrs Orrell said she became concerned that alarm bells might be ringing back home over Mr Jordan’s unexplained absence – as indeed they were by Thursday night.
The Pines, finding Mr Jordan missing, had contacted Sussex Police, who had started to look for him.
One source close to the home said the staff were ‘extremely worried – for them it was a bit like having a missing child.’
At this point, staff asked Mrs Jordan what she knew, and under gentle interrogation, she admitted: ‘He’s gone to Portsmouth.’ Said Mrs Orrell: ‘I was worried that there might be people back home who were missing him and fearing for his safety.
‘He mentioned that he and his wife lived in a retirement home in Hove and some documents he was carrying showed the name of it as The Pines.
‘We made contact with the home and police were able to call off their missing persons search.’
When she told staff at the The Pines that Mr Jordan had got as far as France, the staff were ‘stunned’.
A source said: ‘No one imagined he’d gone across the Channel – they thought he’d just gone for a look around Portsmouth, where there were other D-Day events going on.’
With the drama behind him, Mr Jordan settled down to enjoying himself on Friday – the anniversary of D-Day itself.
He was still utterly oblivious to the story which had gripped the nation back home – and further afield, after a Sussex police chief posted a good-humoured message about the adventure on Twitter.
After a continental breakfast at Le Cosy Hotel in Ouistreham, he visited Le Grand Bunker with the Orrells, then sunned himself at one of the seafront cafes, where he enjoyed a beer.
There was no shortage of attention from pretty young women – as our photographs show.
He was also interviewed by a Slovakian television crew about his memories.
He told them he thought it was ‘most unfair’ that France was occupied in the war, and that he liked French people.
Then, in perhaps the most audacious manoeuvre of his adventure, Mr Jordan decided to take a look at the official commemorative event taking place in Ouistreham.
Despite lacking any accreditation whatsoever, he strolled past supposedly tight security into the main arena itself, only 100 yards away from where the Queen would sit, alongside Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and other world leaders.
But Mrs Orrell explained: ‘Bernard got fed up waiting for the dig- nitaries and so he stood up from his seat and walked out.’
He made his own way back to meet the Orrells at a cafe near Le Grand Bunker where he had another beer – and met more young women.
Despite all the excitement, the old sailor couldn’t help thinking of dear old Blighty and the girl he’d left behind.
He said: ‘I loved my time in Normandy and I met lovely people, but when I was here on the afternoon of the D-Day anniversary, I began to feel guilty and sad about leaving Irene.
‘So even though the family I met here said I could stay until Sunday with them, I wanted to come home and that was when I decided to get the ferry back.’
Back home in Hove yesterday, he told friends: ‘I had a lovely time – I’m very pleased to be back and Irene is pleased to see me too.
‘I hope I didn’t cause the staff at the care home too much worry.’
For the Orrells, meeting Bernard made their trip of remembrance utterly unforgettable.
Mrs Orrell said: ‘We had a lovely time meeting him, he is a wonderful old character and he’s very welcome to come back with us to Normandy next year.’ Additional reporting: Simon Murphy