D-Day veteran John McOwan reflects on 'dreadful sights' at Normandy landings

80 years on from D-Day, there are believed to be only around a hundred surviving British veterans of Operation Overlord.

One of those is 103-year-old John McOwan from Peebles.

After serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the 7th Armoured Division in North Africa and Italy he landed on Gold Beach in Normandy as part of the Allied effort to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe.

The former soldier still vividly remembers the scene eighty years on.

"We saw this spectacle of thousands and thousands of ships, every type - battleships, cruisers, destroyers, landing crafts.

"There were so many there you felt you could walk across them without getting your feet wet.

"I think to most of us, it was just an adventure - you didn't have time to be scared," he said.

As Sgt. McOwan progressed through northern France, he saw first-hand the devastation left in the so-called Falaise Pocket which became known as The Corridor of Death.

"It was a dreadful sight because the RAF had been able to bomb them, just as though they were almost like sitting ducks

"Everywhere was burnt-out vehicles and tanks.

"There were so many dead bodies, you could almost walk over them.

Since 1994, John has only returned once to the Normandy beaches - on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

"I was looking along the gravestones in the war cemetery there, and just taking note of the ages of some of the lads and it was all 18, 19, early 20s.

It always stuck in my mind that these lads never experienced the privileges that we had after we came home - of raising a family, getting a job and even living to a ripe old age as I've done - these poor lads never experienced that.

"I feel like it's my duty to pass on information I can and give them an insight into what was is like and the grief and that follows in its wake.

He will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day by Attending a ceremony close to his home in Peebles.

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