D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Ken Hay

Ken Hay, Age 98, Dorset Regiment

Interviewed 3 June 2023

Arriving in Normandy five days after the first landings, Ken Hay was among the troops sent over as reinforcements.

He said: "It was noisy, dangerous.

"When you have got things landing in the fields next to you and you are getting covered with stuff and you wonder whether the next one is going to hit you.

"I was in uniform with a steel helmet or an operations balaclava, rifle and ammunition."

He was in a group advancing towards Hill 112 as part of the 43rd West Division.

One night in July he was sent on a night patrol to get rid of a self-propelled gun. The soldiers included his brother.

Kay Hay was taken prisoner to Poland to work in a coal mine. Credit: ITV Meridian

"He had promised my mother he would look after me because he was four years older than me," he said.

"He was a corporal, he didn’t have to come.

"He volunteered to take a chap’s place who was married with children, actually he got back but got badly wounded on Hill 112 a couple of days later. I didn't know until later.

"Of our patrol of 30, I found out after the war, 26 got back. The battle lasted two or three hours. Five of us got captured and nine were killed.

"You have got bullets coming at you.

"The worst bit is tracer - a white thing you can see and it’s every sixth or seventh bullet and you are laying there and you hear them coming past and you just pray one is not coming this way.

"I was 18 and it was quite terrifying.

"It was the 12th SS Panzer Division we were against and I think they had wonderful equipment and I think they had infra-red.

"I think they were watching what we were doing. We didn’t know. And so when we made ourselves comfortable they just stepped out with guns trained on us and that was that bit of the war finished for me."

Mr Hay was taken to Poland to work in a coal mine.

As the Allies advanced he and other prisoners were forced to march hundreds of miles before being abandoned by their guards.

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