D-Day mission to maintain grandad’s 80-year promise

As his Army concern boots hit the sands of Juno Beach on sixth June 1944 Second Lieutenant Gilbert Jones bent down and scooped up a handful for luck.

He put his D-Day talisman in a tin and saved it in his backpack for the remainder of the conflict. Back dwelling on his native Merseyside he would by no means converse of the carnage of these landings or the comrades he misplaced in Operation Overlord. But to honour them, and to provide thanks for his personal life, the younger officer promised himself that, sooner or later, he would take the sand again.

Sadly, time would meet up with him. When he died aged 98 the sand was nonetheless within the previous ice cream tub the place he’d hidden it, locked inside a metallic trunk crammed with army memorabilia. Now nonetheless, his grandson, an Army veteran who’s seen motion within the Balkans, East Africa and the Gulf, is ready to finish his grandfather’s remaining mission.

On sixth June subsequent yr, the eightieth anniversary of the landings, Dan Searson, who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, will sail to Juno Beach, wade by way of the Normandy waters, and return the sand in his personal private act of remembrance.

‘I’d at all times identified my grandfather had a few metallic army containers – he cleared one out and gave it to me after I went to Sandhurst,’ remembers Dan, 47, from Liverpool. ‘But I never knew what was in the second. Like many men of his generation he was guarded about D-Day and the Normandy Campaign. He was a warm, loving man who cherished his children and grandchildren, he wasn’t chilly or secretive, he simply didn’t need to share it with us. I feel he felt it was his burden, not ours.

‘Four or five years before he died we were having a beer together and he told me: ‘I’ve obtained one thing I must take again to the Beach …’ I might have gladly taken him however by then he was too frail. All I may do was to decide to doing it for him.

‘When he died he left the box to me. Inside I found his Sam Brown, his stable belt, his D-Day whistle and a ledger with the names of all of his men in it, as well as his hand drawn maps showing the precise details of the Juno Beach landings.

‘My grandfather was a Royal Engineer, it was his job to shift men and munitions and kit safely from sea to land. Seeing the maps he’d held in his fingers on D-Day gave me goosebumps. It was solely after I’d lifted them out that, beneath a duplicate of the newspaper from June seventh 1944 which my grandmother had saved for his homecoming, I discovered his field of sand and pebbles.

‘Closure is not the kind of word the fighting men and women of his generation would have used back in the 1940s and 1950s but that’s what this was for him. He at all times collected a pebble or a shell wherever he went, and he inspired us to do the identical. He was extremely sentimental about doing it, it was a ritual for him. Now I do know why.

‘So I’ll take his Juno Beach sand again for him and exchange it at 06.30am on sixth June 2024, 80 years to the minute because the landings. It will probably be closure for my grandfather and his conflict service, closure for my very own 30-year Army profession and my final good bye to him.’

Gil joined the Royal Artillery in 1938 earlier than transferring to the Royal Engineers. As nicely as combating in Europe, he additionally served in Burma and, after being demobbed on the finish of the conflict, signed up as a reservist. He put his uniform again on for the Suez Crisis in 1956 and remained within the reserves till 1963, rising to the rank of Major.

A transport clerk earlier than the conflict, he returned to his peace time employer Coast Line, remaining there when it was purchased by P&O, and finally retiring as a regional director. Gil was married to his conflict time sweetheart Margaret for 70 years. She died in November 2015 and he handed away lower than a yr later, simply 4 days after celebrating his 98th birthday in October 2016.

Dan remembers: ‘He was a very involved grandfather, he would take me out hiking, put up tents in the back garden, teach me about nature, tie knots with me and then we’d gentle a campfire and cook dinner our dinner collectively. We have been so shut. It was due to him that I utilized for an an Army scholarship at 16, and set the course for my very own lifetime of army service.

‘Throughout my childhood he enthralled me with all his stories of army camaraderie and adventure – but he wouldn’t discuss D-Day, he by no means needed to debate it with the individuals he beloved most.’

Perhaps this isn’t stunning for after the American massacre on Omaha Beach, the 14,000 Canadian forces and 6,400 British troops who took Juno suffered the heaviest losses by sea. They have been nonetheless profitable, combating their strategy to a rendezvous with British forces which had landed on both aspect of them, on Sword and Gold Beaches.

Second Lieutenant Jones was among the many 1000’s who helped set up a bridgehead that reached the primary railway line and the strategically vital street to Caen. By the top of the primary day of combating, the forces he helped land on Juno have been additional into France than these from every other seaside.

His grandson was commissioned in 1997, becoming a member of the RAMC as a Medical Support Officer, and rising to the rank of Captain. He served all over the world within the common military and as a reservist, lastly working as a army liaison officer throughout the Covid pandemic.

Today Dan runs Challenge The Wild, an organization which specialises in offering out of doors occasions and supporting the army veterans group. He can be a army ambassador for veterans’ charity Walking With The Wounded.

To elevate funds for WWTW, he’s hoping to take a small staff of veterans with him on his expedition to Juno Beach, leaving from Sir Winston Churchill’s dwelling Chartwell in Kent, touchdown on Juno, after which climbing a collection of celebrated conflict routes by way of France, Luxembourg and Holland, totalling greater than 200 miles. The expedition will conclude at Arnhem.

‘It’s the sort factor my grandfather would have beloved,’ Dan says. ‘He believed in resilience and the strength we have inside ourselves, no matter what we’re dealing with. He took the sand to maintain his braveness up, and I reckon after 80 years, it’s mission completed.’

To discover out extra about Dan’s D-Day Expedition or to donate go to https://ddayexpedition.co.uk/ and www.challengethewild.com