A hero's return: D-Day veteran Don, 100, tours his old regiment haunts, Daily Express

Military veteran Don Turrell shed a tear as he returned to the birthplace of his Second World War regiment.

Don, 100, who served on D-Day with The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), received a hero’s welcome as one of its last serving members.

He toured some of the rifle regiment’s significant locations before a red carpet reception at its museum in Hamilton, which tells the story of the Cameronians, raised in Douglas in 1689 by James, earl of Angus.

The trip was a birthday treat organised by the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, which returns heroes to the battlefields, and with whom Don returns to Normandy each year.

Wielding a Second World War rifle Don said: “I really enjoyed every moment in Scotland and meeting all the lads. And I also enjoyed a few wee drams, although they weren’t singles... they were doubles.” Don was accompanied by his friend Callum Reid, 28, with whom a friendship was struck out of the most devastating encounters.

His great grandfather Sgt James Dargie, 33, was killed on July 16, 1944, and rests alongside 1,575 others at St Manvieu War Cemetery near Caen, Normandy.

It is the final resting place of Don’s chums Rifleman William Carr, 19, and Lance Sergeant Robert Bremner who died in fierce fighting after D-Day. Although Don did not know Sgt Dargie he forged a bond with Callum after a chance meeting in France and rekindled his link with Scotland.

Callum, 28, from Glasgow, said: “St Manvieu holds particular significance because my great

grandfather left behind a wife and four young children, my grandma being eight years of age.

“Shortly before Grandma Sheila passed away in 2018 she told me how a little girl had come up to her in the street in Aberdeen and told her that her dad had been killed in France.

“Grandma ran back to the family flat where she was greeted by the sight of her mother in a hysteric state, clutching a telegram and surrounded by neighbours trying to console her.

“Grandma spent her whole life telling herself her father must have managed to escape and he couldn’t have passed away until she visited the cemetery with my grandfather, my dad and my uncle where she was able to see his headstone. Meeting Don has been life-changing.”

Don, born in London to a Scottish mother, lied about his age to enlist just like Sgt Dargie, who pretended to be a year older. He was seriously injured in the assault in which his pals perished.

Don said: “I still feel close to them. I speak their names aloud. I haven’t forgotten them and I never will.”