A Remarkable Reunion
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
New Zealander Barry Deed from Tauranga recently witnessed a truly remarkable incident when visiting the Normandy landing beaches on an overseas trip. Mr Deed retold the story to the staff of the National Army Museum during his Christmas time visit.
Two World War II veterans and comrades were remarkably reunited in October last year, more than 67 years since they had stormed the Normandy landing beaches on D Day and one had left the other for dead.
Bill Betts and Clifford Baker were amongst the first ashore that day having spent the two previous years training together as radio operators whose role it was to send radio messages from the advancing frontline, to Allied guns so they wouldn’t shell their own troops.
On D Day, Bill was hit by enemy fire and the last time Clifford saw him he was lying wounded on the beach telling everyone else to keep going.
Miraculously both men visited the same D Day museum at Arromanches on the same day, with Clifford signing the museum’s visitor’s book just 20 minutes after Bill and recognised his name.
See a video clip and read the story.
Tags: World War II
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Military History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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