D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Harry Howorth

Harry Howorth, Aged 102, King's Shropshire Light Infantry

Interviewed 18 February 2024

Died 18 April 2024

Among the first troops to arrive at Sword Beach early on the morning of D-Day, Harry Howorth was the third person to step from his landing craft as it hit the beach.

The vessel had walkways on each side.

He said: "You ran down the steps into the water, as that’s what you were supposed to do.

"But the ladder, the walkway, a sailor was holding the rope, taking all the flak.

"He didn’t last long, so consequently the ramp I was on went down because he’d been shot, and it broke off.

"So I ended up in the water.

"Fortunately for me, and I know he shouldn’t of done it, and I wish I could shake his hand, he pulled me out.

"I don’t know who he is to this day. I had loads and loads of bandoliers (a pocketed belt) and ammunition and just before I went they gave me a load more to put on as well.

"So if he hadn’t have pulled me out I was a goner. I couldn’t have swum."

As a Signaller, Mr Howorth was also weighed down by the wireless set he was carrying. 

"I looked at the boat coming in on the right hand side of me," he said. "I saw a hole come in the side of the ship and two seconds or so after there was a big bang and I would have thought everyone on board that ship was dead.

"I got on the beach.

"We were running beside each other and there was flak and strafing and the noise was terrific.

"We took cover inside a burnt-out half track and crouched behind there. More or less to get our mind focused.

"And I saw a regiment three abreast running down the street towards Bayeux and I thought ‘that will be our lot.’ And then I realised I had been a fool and went the wrong way."

"I wasn’t scared at the time - about two days after I landed I was scared then.

"We had commandeered an empty chateaux. It had an outside toilet and as I came out of the toilet door a German aircraft flew over strafing and I could hear the bullets hitting the ground in front of me all the way along.

"And it got near me and it turned off. It did frighten you. After that it was alright."

"You were just doing the job you had done on exercises. It was a job that had to be done. You are sorry about all those people who were killed."

Mr Howorth’s battalion later lost more than 100 men near the city of Caen when they came under what he believed was friendly fire.

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