A WAR hero from Wellesbourne, who was wounded during the D-Day landings, was reunited with one of the men who charged up the Normandy beaches with him, 67 years later.

The last time Bill Betts, 88, saw Clifford Baker, now 98, was when he waved him onto the beach after he was shot in the leg by a German machine-gun.

But on a visit to the Arromanches D-Day Museum almost seven decades later, Mr Betts recognised his old comrade‘s signature in the book of remembrance.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw his name but there it was in black and white,“ Bill said.

“I’d been given a commemorative medal by the Mayoress of Arromanches so I asked her just when Mr Baker had been into the museum that day. She said only twenty minutes before and that his coach was now boarding in the car park.“

The bus was quickly stopped, and when Mr Baker stepped off, to his surprise he found an old pal ready for an emotional exchange of memories and a quick hug.

Mr Betts said: “I never imagined that we‘d see each other after all that time let alone in a place so close to where we were last together.

“I think it was ordained that we should not meet for 67 years until that particular day and that particular time.“

Mr Betts was just 19 when on the 6th June 1944, fighting with the Essex Yeomanry, he insisted on being one of the first ashore because she was suffering from sea sickness.

But he was wounded under heavy German machine-gun fire and had to play dead for 8 hours until US soldiers rescued him.

He said: “It was a bit scary. I ran with the infantry and got to the road at the top of the beach. Then I suddenly felt a great thump in my leg. I looked down and saw I had a fairly large whole in my trousers.“

After a quick patch-up from the infantry soldiers, he saw Mr Baker for the last time.

“It was chaos,“ he said. “We saw each other as they were running passed. I was just telling them all to carry on. It was fairly brief.

“It got a bit nasty. Another wounded man lying next to me put his hand up to the others passing and it was shot through. I realised I had to stay absolutely still because if the sniper had shot him and I moved, he would shoot me.

“Then the man was sitting up. He just slumped forward and lay on top of me and I realised he was dead.“

After recovering in a hospital in Southampton, Mr Betts rejoined the Essex Yeomanry in France and fought on with them through Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany.

After the war Mr Betts went on to forge a career in the motor industry for Chrysler in Leamington Spa.