D-Day special report: Time to remember lads we left behind

And now six veterans are making an emotional return to the site of the D-Day landings 70 years after their involvement – one visiting for the first time since the Normandy invasion.

Also touring battlefields and cemeteries, the six, who hail from across the Black Country and Telford, are making their way to Arromanches on the Normandy coast for tomorrow's poignant ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the landings.

They were joining the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and thousands of other well-wishers and veterans, for a day of commemoration and celebration.

Arthur Jones, now 88, was sent to the front in his tank as part of the Forward Delivery Squadron, replacing an unfortunate soldier who had lost his life and delivering the much-needed tank.

Much of the fighting had moved from Gold Beach to Caen Canal by the time he arrived, so he was thankful he did not see much of the bloodshed on that first day.

Mr Jones said: "When we got there they had part of the harbour up, so I didn't get my feet wet because we landed on the Mulberry harbour.

"They had taken Gold Beach and were trying to sort Caen out. Thank God I missed the fighting, I was lucky."

Mr Jones, from Solent Close in Pendeford, Wolverhampton, then spent the next 18 months until the end of the war driving the tank from France to Germany with the 147 Essex Yeomanry, Eighth Armoured – including a three-week period when he and a friend became stranded in France and were looked after by a family of Belgian refugees.

He added: "This weekend is important to me to remember those lads who didn't come home. A lot of people were still 18 or 19, young men and women who were killed in war and are lying in their graves."

Another of this week's pilgrims is Joe Davies, now 91, who was 21 when he landed on Gold Beach in Arromanches with the 12th Royal Army Service Corps.

It was his job to prepare military vehicles for battle – including making sure they were fully ready for the water.

He said: "The biggest job for us was preparation, because all the vehicles had to be waterproofed.

"It was important that they were tested and tested and tested for weeks before we went, as if we had not done the sufficient waterproofing they could have submerged."

After weeks of preparation in Kent Mr Davies, from Compton in Wolverhampton, then left from London and headed across the Channel on a 1930s-built Thornycroft Lorry.

Tomorrow will be his first visit to the beaches of Normandy since that day. He said: "I won't expect to see anything the same. I hope that I could meet up with some old colleagues."

Another of those on the trip, organised by ACE Academy in Tipton, is 91-year-old Jack Hill from Quarry Bank, who served on a Royal Navy minesweeper as the troops landed. He recalled: "We were first in on Gold Beach, sweeping to the left – the Germans didn't fire at us and we escaped without a scratch.

"We were holding gun powder for the troops that were landing, but we were told to keep out of trouble, just do what we were supposed to do and sweep mines. There was a clash between the British gun boats and the Germans, they were going at it hammer and tongs, and we kept out of trouble."

The other veterans on the coach include 91-year-old Stanley Coldicott, from Warley, who served with the RAF, and Dennis Moodie, also 91 and from Lichfield, who was a Royal Artillery wireless operator with the 94th field regiment.

Dennis Thompson, aged 88 and from Muxton in Telford, is also with the group.

He was with RAF 170 Squadron bomber command, and served his time as a gunner in a Lancaster bomber, running raids ahead of the landing parties.