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."