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Donald Jones
Royal Navy (1943-1946)
Donald always wanted to join the Royal Navy, despite all of his family serving in the Army, and joined up when he was 17 years old. He completed his shore training at HMS Rayleigh, then was posted to HMS Drake in Plymouth, before later being sent to HMS Queen Charlotte in Southport to complete his AA3 Gunner training course.
Working as a Gunner, Donald landed at Sword Beach on D-Day (6th June 1944) with the first wave of ships that were sent across the channel. He was part of a crew on a landing craft tank which transported approx. 100 troops across to the beach. Donald managed the port side gun, which was required to provide covering fire to the troops landing on the beach. Donald remembers on D-Day itself a shell hitting the deck of his craft only about 8ft away from where he was standing, sailing about 2ft over the head of his Number 2 Gunner. The look on that gunners face Donald describes as one of his defining moments of D-Day. Fortunately this was the only time their landing craft tank was hit in all their crossings.
Donald still lives where he’s always lived in Mold, North Wales, and enjoyed flying the Welsh flag with pride when he travelled to Normandy with the Royal British Legion to the 80th anniversary D-Day events in Normandy in June 2024.