D-DAY 60TH ANNIVERSARY: HUNDREDS of soldiers lost their lives during the Normandy invasions but veteran Eric Upright was one of the lucky ones.
The 81-year-old, from Warminster, was one of the first soldiers to storm the beaches on D-Day with the 49th Reconnaissance Core.
Weeks later he was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell that pierced his right lung and he spent 10 months in hospital.
He said: "When you are 21 years old it's an adventure, its only on reflection when see all these chaps killed and being carted off that it strikes you.
"I lost quite a lot of my friends and this trip to Normandy is my duty to say cheerio as this will be my last one.
"At the time I was hit by shrapnel it didn't hurt. I thought it was just a stone.
"It wasn't until I saw the blood flowing around me I realised I had been hit.
"Of the six corporals I kicked about with I was the only one to come home. I was the lucky one.
"What makes people forget is because there is no animosity now like there was in the 1940s.
"I haven't got any animosity towards the Germans, I would shake hands with the chap who set off that mortar and god knows how many men I mowed down from my turret.
"For many of us the memories are all we have left. Why anyone wants to fight a war I don't know. But 60 years ago it was a great adventure."
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