American war veteran Gene Schulz made a welcome return to Marlborough this week, visiting the area where was stationed during the Second World War.

Mr Schultz, now 95, arrived in Marlborough in February 1944 with the US Army and lived in a Nissen hut on the common for five months.

He served with an administrative unit that was responsible for battle plans and Mr Schulz was in charge of typing orders.

He said: “You might say that I was privy to secret information because these were battle plans and I was the typist so I knew what was going to happen and later I knew what had happened.”

The corps was billeted to Marlborough for training because it was known when the second front opened it would be from the South coast.

“We did a lot of training and a lot of it was hiking for physical exercise. We carried our backpack and a rifle and we hiked along many of the lanes here, along the Kennet River and to the many villages. Driving along them now, I still recognise many of the buildings.

“The buildings look the same, perhaps they have been spruced up a little, but I remember the High Street well.

“Just a few days after we arrived here the English people were celebrating Salute the Soldier Week and right here [at the Castle and Ball] standing on the porch were my commanding officer with a British general and the mayor of Marlborough. My unit were standing in the street and then we paraded up and down High Street.”

His unit left the Nissen huts on Marlborough Common around the time of D-Day landings while the camp was midway through being converted into a hospital by a different American unit.

They headed to Ogbourne where they camped in a field for six weeks before heading to Southampton where they got onto a liberty ship and crossed the channel, arriving on Utah beach on July 22, Mr Schulz’s 21st birthday.

The visit back to Marlborough was arranged by local amateur historian Neil Stevens who got in contact with Mr Schulz while researching Aylesbury Arms hotel, now Aylesbury Court.

Mr Stevens arranged for Mr Schulz to get behind the wheel of a Second World War jeep and drive around the common, which happened to be called Eugene the Jeep, Mr Schulz’s nickname.

Mr Stevens said: “Gene is the first person I’ve met that has been able to give first-hand proof that General Patton came to Marlborough Common.

“Flamboyant and notorious, I’d always suspected he’d come here but never had the proof but Gene saw him on the common on a number of occasions.”