{"id":10573,"date":"2024-09-08T17:34:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T17:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/d-day-veteran-don-sheppard-dies-aged-104\/"},"modified":"2024-09-08T17:34:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T17:34:38","slug":"d-day-veteran-don-sheppard-dies-aged-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/d-day-veteran-don-sheppard-dies-aged-104\/","title":{"rendered":"D-Day veteran Don Sheppard dies aged 104"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"StuartStuart Woodward\/BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Don Sheppard said he could never forget what he saw during World War Two<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A World War Two veteran who took part in D-Day has died, aged 104.<\/p>\n

Donald ‘Don’ Sheppard, from Basildon, landed on Juno Beach on 6 June 1944 as a Royal Engineer.<\/p>\n

Some 156,000 British, American and Canadian troops launched from the sea and air on to French soil in one of the most successful military operations in history.<\/p>\n

In June he received a police escort<\/a> to attend a special service marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the Living Memorial at Rettendon, near Chelmsford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The British Normandy Memorial account posted on X<\/a>: “We are saddened to hear of the death of 104-year-old D-Day veteran Donald Sheppard.<\/p>\n

“Donald attended the virtual opening of the Memorial in 2021 & features in the Winston Churchill Centre Royal British Legion exhibition.<\/p>\n

“Thinking of Donald’s wife Sandra & family. Rest in Peace Don.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"FamilyFamily photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Don Sheppard, who served with the Royal Engineers, rode motorbikes during World War Two<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Recalling his landing at Juno beach, Mr Sheppard described D-Day to the PA News agency in 2019 as a “waste of life” but recognised the landings as being “so important”.<\/p>\n

He said: “I know we had to defend ourselves… but young guys like me 20, 21, who never lasted five minutes, some of them got killed before they got off the boat.<\/p>\n

“Tragic, absolutely.”<\/p>\n

When he arrived at the beach at around 16:30, Mr Sheppard said the Germans had “really got the distance and shells were coming over like rain”, with battleships also firing over their heads.<\/p>\n

“We lost quite a few guys,” he said. “We (the survivors) were lucky really.”<\/p>\n

After breaking through Nazi lines in the August, he continued through to Belgium, the Netherlands and eventually Germany – including to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"EssexEssex Police<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In June he attended a special service at the Living Memorial at Rettendon<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Speaking of his experience, Mr Sheppard said: “I shall never forget that for the rest of my life. How one human could do that to another.”<\/p>\n

The only wound he received during the war was a cut to his leg as he took cover in a ditch as German bombs fell.<\/p>\n

But after medical tests and scans some seven decades later, it was discovered he had a sliver of shrapnel sitting in his lung.<\/p>\n

Mr Sheppard said the piece of metal had never caused any health problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stuart Woodward\/BBC Don Sheppard said he could never forget what he saw during World War Two A World War Two veteran who took part in D-Day has died, aged 104. Donald ‘Don’ Sheppard, from Basildon, landed on Juno Beach on 6 June 1944 as a Royal Engineer. Some 156,000 British, American and Canadian troops launched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[2180,5163,1017,3761,5164,2100],"class_list":["post-10573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-england","tag-aged","tag-dday","tag-dies","tag-don","tag-sheppard","tag-veteran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10575,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions\/10575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}