D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Albert Westgate

Albert Westgate, Age: 99, RAF

Interviewed March 5 2024

Trained as an air gunner and wireless operator, Mr Westgate was not sent to join a Lancaster crew as intended and expected.

Instead in the run-up to D-Day he was attached to a unit of US soldiers and given no reason why he was taken out of the line for operational flying duty. 

He said: "It was not the actual invasion, it was a follow-on team.

"I became part of them.

"All I can remember of D-Day itself, is standing on the coast watching all the planes going across and gliders being told.

"I never took part in it - I was fascinated.

"According to the paperwork, I can’t remember, it was six days later that I arrived on Omaha Beach. We were on a landing craft."

He was officially dispatched to be a wireless operator but has never worked out why as a leading aircraftman he had been chosen to go to Omaha.

"I wish I could answer that question," he added.

"I have sat and thought about it many times. Why, when I trained with the RAF am I sent to join the Yanks?

"They didn’t seem to know what to do with me.

"Compared to others I was very fortunate because the losses for the RAF around about that time were horrendous."

He was later sent to rejoin a British Army convoy through northern France as it advanced along the coast to Belgium.

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