Shropshire Star

Last Post for Normandy veterans

Two of Shropshire's last survivors of the Normandy landings of June 1944 have died within a few days of one another.

Published
Jim Backhouse at his home

Jim Backhouse, aged 92, of Coton Hill, Shrewsbury, was a 19-year-old sapper who landed with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division on Juno Beach on D-Day-plus 2.

And Horace "Hodge" Swannick, aged 95, of Heath Farm, Shrewsbury, was in the Parachute Regiment and involved in the operation to air drop supplies to the invasion forces.

Mr Backhouse died on December 5, and Mr Swannick, who was latterly from the Uplands Nursing Home, on November 22.

They were among the last members of the Shropshire branch of the Normandy Veterans' Association which faded out in 2013 as veterans passed on and those that there were became less mobile. Jim was the official standard bearer. The NVA nationally officially disbanded the following year.

Jim, born in Ellesmere Road, Shrewsbury, worked as a telegraph boy with the post office before joining the army, which probably explains why he went into the postal section of the Royal Engineers.

Recalling in 2014 going ashore at Normandy, he said: “We went across in a bigger boat and transferred into an LCI, Landing Craft Infantry.

"I had a big surprise. We had to get off the big boat down nets onto the smaller boats and when I got there somebody said to me: ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ It was a lad that lived in Sultan Road in Ditherington.

"He was the coxswain on the landing craft. I think his surname was Francis. He drove us up more or less onto the beach and dropped the front down and off we went. He shouted: ‘Good luck Jim.’ I knew him because he was at St Michael’s School and I was at the Lancasterian. Shrewsbury was not all that big.

“HMS Belfast was offshore firing over the top of us. I remember the first time I was shelled, at Bernieres-sur-Mer. I lay down and put my tin hat over my face. I thought I was not going to be one of those soldiers who had a grave and they did not know who he was. They were going to recognise me - I put the tin hat on my face so it was not knocked about.

“I remember one night our cook had set up the stuff outside for breakfast the next morning, with a trestle table and everything on it, and in the morning the table had been blown up by a shell and there was nothing there.

“When you are that age, it’s an adventure. I’m not going to say I was not frightened. I was scared to death when it first started to happen. Then you think it’s not happening to me, I’m not going to get killed. I did see a lot of bodies.”

Mr Swannick worked at Severn Trent Water Board in post-war civilian life. He and wife Doreen celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2012.

"Hodge," who was the youngest of 15 children and was born in a black and white cottage at Berwick Road, Shrewsbury, joined the army in 1941 and served in the 6th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, and was during the Normandy landings involved in air dispatch supplying ground troops.

"Hodge's" funeral was held on December 13, and a celebration of the life of Jim, husband of the late Joan, will be held at Emstrey Crematorium, Shrewsbury, on December 29 at 11.30am.