Man completes promise to return sand collected by Grandfather on D-Day beach 80 years earlier

  • ITV Granada Reports correspondent Paul Crone was with Dan Searson as he returned the sand to its rightful place

A man has fulfilled a promise to his grandfather to return sand to the D-Day beach he was sent to gathered for good luck as the invasion began.

Gilbert Jones, who served with the 5th Berkshire Regiment, was one of 21,000 men who landed on Juno Beach on 6 June 1944.

As he set foot on land Gilbert, from Southport, grabbed a handful of sand, saving it in his mess tin for luck and carrying it around for the rest of the war.

He had always intended to return the sand, to honour those he lost and in thanks for his life, but he was never able to.

Gilbert Jones served with the 5th Berkshire Regiment. Credit: Family picture

Instead his grandson and former soldier Dan Searson, from Manchester, promised to do it on his behalf - and at dawn on the 80th anniversary of the invasion he returned the sand to its rightful place.

"He told me he'd been in D-Day," Dan said. "In fact he's the inspiration and the reason for why I joined the army and I had a long and successful career serving as well and it was all down to him and the stories he told me."

He added: "I still find it quite sad that a lot of our younger generation don't know what D-Day is, they don't understand the significance of it.

"In the world we live in today we need to educate them, and I'm hoping to do that as well."

The only British brothers to die on the beaches of Normandy
A piper accompanied Dan as he returned the sand to Juno beach in Normandy.

Dan is an ambassador of the charity walking with the wounded, and together with supporters is taking part in a 150km hike across all five D-Day landing sites.

Ant Middleton, a former Special Services Operator and star of SAS Who Dares Wins, is one of those walking.

"Having served myself I look at the beaches and I can imagine the obstacles, the barbed wire, the blood, the machine gun fire, people on their stomachs crawling up this beach in order to liberate not only France, but the UK, absolutely phenomenal," he said.

Tony Hulton, Chief Executive of Walking With The Wounded, said: "Events like this help us to connect veterans, service and communities and just to remind others of the sacrifices that have been made for us."