D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Don Howkins

Don Howkins, Age 102, Royal Artillery

Interviewed 24 April 2024

Originally assigned to the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry, Don Howkins was a dispatch rider attached to Royal Artillery when he set off for Normandy on D-Day.

He had suspected a military big operation was about to take place and therefore married his sweetheart at the beginning 1944.

He and his colleagues had learned how to waterproof guns and equipment and had been given special training while in Surrey to hot moving targets on land.

Leaving London docks on 6 June his vessel was off the coast during the invasion and he landed later on Gold Beach, camping near Arromanches.

The first engagement with the enemy was a Tilly-sur-Seulles where there was a lot of fighting and destruction.

Mr Howkins said: "When we left Bayeux we came under heavy shellfire as we were approaching Tilly itself and we responded with firing back.

"And we were in action the best part of the time. Tilly was taken and retaken several times by us and the Germans before we eventually overtook it.

"We were moving about all the time.

"When we went into action I came off my motorbike and went on to the guns. I was the gunner. 

"It was dangerous all the time. You could come under heavy shelling or gunfire any day of the day or night. 

"The three months I was in Normandy we had some good times and some bad times of course but I was never really frightened or upset at all.

"One thing I remember, we came across the German gun position and they were all laying down dead except one man was sitting in his seat still in the gun position.

"He was dead of course but he was sitting upright - shot through the head by the infantry.

"You have got to remember that the German soldiers they were good soldiers, only youngsters like myself. Somebody’s son or husband.

"And there they all were lying dead."

Mr Howkins continued to advance with his unit through Belgium and Holland and into Germany.

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