100-year-old Lancaster D-Day veteran is Radio Times front cover star

Richard Brock who turned 100 on May 30, was a Driver IC in the 1st Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, and is one of four veterans to feature on the cover of the Radio Times this week to commemorate the D-Day landings of June 6 1944 and the start of the campaign to liberate mainland Europe.

Richard Brock is also one of only five World War Two veterans in Lancashire asked to the 80th anniversary commemorations of the Normandy Landings in France on June 6.

Richard was called up aged 18 and joined the 1st Battalion East Lancs Regiment.

The Normandy Landings were his first taste of action.

“We were green and didn’t know what to expect but we soon got acclimatised to it,” said Richard, whose father was a World War One veteran.

As the troops set sail the weather was atrocious and when their battleship finally arrived off the French coast, the noise was “horrendous”.

Richard and his mates scrambled down the ship and into the tank landing craft, and came ashore on Gold Beach where they were fired on by the Germans.

Eventually, the English troops advanced towards Caen and Hill 112 where Richard saw the “fantastic” sight of Lancaster Bombers overhead.

His next task was to drive a Bren Gun Carrier across two rivers before liberating Bois-Halbout in August.

“As we advanced through Normandy, I saw miles of dead soldiers and horses, and the smell was horrible,” he said.

Richard lost many of his friends too. “I said to myself I’m 18 and have had a good life so if I’m the next to be killed, I’m resigned to it.”

He was unaware that he was to have a brush with death while on 48 hours leave in Antwerp.

Richard and his mates decided to visit the cinema but went to a nearby café first for a drink.

“As we left the café, a German V2 rocket landed on the cinema killing many people inside and I was blown across the café in the blast,” he said.

He was pulled out of the debris with concussion and minor injuries.

“A drink in that café saved our lives. I’m a big believer in fate – what has to be, has to be.”

Richard went on to the unsuccessful Operation Market Garden but eventually was involved in the liberation of Holland.

He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge during a bitterly cold winter.

“It was terrible weather, with thick snow and on Christmas Day, we just had soup. Some days, we didn’t have anything.”

Richard had another nightmare experience when he drove his major into Belsen Concentration Camp, a day after it was liberated.

“There were large signs warning of typhoid and the atrocious smell took me back to my Normandy days,” he recalled.

“We saw the cattle trucks in which the inmates had been transported and when we approached them, they cowered away because they thought we would whip them like the SS did. The experience will live with me forever.”

Thankfully, the war was nearing its end and Richard was in Hamburg when the Germans surrendered.

However, he remained in Germany for another two years, initially at a People’s Displacement Camp and then in charge of the stores when he was promoted to Sergeant.

He received eight medals including France’s Legion D’honneur and the Dutch Liberator’s medal.

In the same year he was demobbed – 1947 – Richard married Patricia who had been evacuated to Lancaster from Birmingham and they were together for almost 75 years. They had three sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The couple met at the Storey Institute where among their friends was Frankie Vaughan, then an art student, who often sung there.

Richard’s working life of 50 years was spent as a master butcher at Burt’s Butchers in Lancaster’s Market Hall.

He still lives in his Bowerham home and celebrated his milestone birthday at Morecambe Golf Club.

“I wouldn’t change my life for the world,” he said.