Exeter war veteran Geoffrey Pyne is making a last visit to the beaches in Normandy to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Mr Pyne, 94, from Pinhoe, landed with British Forces on Sword beach, one of the four invasion beaches, on June 6 1944.
Now he is making a last pilgrimage to the battlefield where he lost so many friends and comrades in the bitter fighting that followed the successful landing to free Europe from the Nazis.
Mr Pyne said: "It will be a sad time as well as a proud one to remember all those lads who did not come back."
The 70th anniversary will prove particularly poignant as the Normandy Veterans Association have said this will be the last anniversary that they will officially mark.
Later this year, the Association plans to officially disband and lay up their National Standard at a service at St Margaret's, Westminster, London.
"We are all getting a bit old now," said Mr Pyne. "I went a few years after the war, then on the 50th anniversary but this will be my last trip."
Mr Pyne, who leaves for France on Tuesday with other D-Day veterans from around the country, served with the TA in the Royal Devon Yeomanry but was with the 20th anti-tank regiment for the invasion.
He recalled: "We were all loaded on a 10,000 ton Liberty ship in the Thames Estuary on June 1 and then it was all stop, go until we were told we were on our way on June 5.
"It was quite a rough crossing and we were given turns to go on deck. I recall looking up and seeing hundreds of our planes flying over towards France.
"We had 17lb anti-tank guns on Sherman tanks or hauled by American half-tracks.
"We landed about lunch time and had to fight our way off the beaches. It was tough going.
"We pushed on and the Germans pushed us back at first but we regrouped and forced them back again.
It was around this time that Mr Pyne found a camera beside the body of a dead enemy soldier.
"I picked it up and went on to take some photographs with it – although I handed it back at the end of the war.
"The gunfire was tremendous and the fighting intense but the 17-pounders went straight through their armour.
"Funnily enough one of the worst things I remember amid all the noise and fighting were the mosquitoes which were awful."
After forcing a beachhead, the troops moved on and it was later, while working on the tracks of his vehicle that Mr Pyne was badly wounded by shellfire.
"I was down beside the half-track working on the tracks when the Germans started shelling us. The blast knocked me out and I took a load of shrapnel in the shoulder.
"My mate was on the other side of the half track and he came round to help. The next thing I knew I was in a field hospital stripped to the waist, bandaged with a nurse beside me."
Mr Pyne was in the hospital for a month before he was passed fit and rejoined his unit which ended the war having fought all the way to Bremen in Germany.
At this week's anniversary Mr Pyne, who was a leading engineer, first class, will attend a special memorial service , attended by the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, at Quistreham Cathedral, near the landing beach.
After the war Mr Pyne and his wife Dorothy lived in Goldsmith Street and then Monks Road before moving to Pinhoe.
The couple had married in 1942 at St Leonard's Church - five days before the Exeter blitz.
He said: "We were due to go to Dellers for the reception but of course it was flattened by the bombs so we had to make other plans."
Mr Pyne worked for city plumbers Taylor & Barnett before being appointed a district water inspector with the city council, where he worked for some 40 years.
