D-Day veteran Cyril Booth celebrates his 100th birthday

Cyril Booth was born on 24 June 1924 in Purston Jaglin, Featherstone.

He was one of five siblings, three sisters and one brother.

He attended Kings School in Pontefract from age 11 to 16 and then he went to work at E Green & Son Ltd, in 1940 as a trainee engineer.

In 1942, at the age of 18, he volunteered and joined the army.

And in 1943 he began to train as an electrical engineer and signalman.

Regarding the war in general, his son Andy Booth said: “He says it was a total waste of life on all sides. The Germans had to be put in their place – but to see all that death for land?

"He would say he was nothing special. It was the people at home running the country who are the heroes.

“What a man - I can't say enough about him.”

He added that there are details his father does not go into.

His first overseas operation was on June 12, 1944 in Normandy with the 11th Armoured Division, 75th Ack Ack Regiment.

His duties were to repair anything electrical, such as telephones and radios.

Most importantly, he would repair the tank radios on the front line during the night.

His daughter-in-law Ann said: “He would say ‘a tank without a radio is a sitting duck’.

"Because of his training and skills, he became a high value target to the enemy.

"He recalls that one of the most frightening things was a rolling barrage where you hear the shells landing closer and closer, then it would pass you by and you hopefully were not hit.

"He then went onto Caen and he said this area had the most ferocious fighting that he witnessed.

"He recalled another time when ‘we went into a Belgian village chasing the German retreats and were stopped by the villagers who said there was a Tiger Tank in the woods, this information saved our lives’.”

After the war ended in 1945 and then he was transferred to Burma and demobbed in 1947.

He then returned as a design engineer to E Green & Son Ltd, where he studied further and became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, staying there until his retirement in 1989.

He met his wife, Elizabeth, in 1947 at work and married her in 1952.

They had two children, Ian and Andrew.

His family, friends and past coworkers, along with special guests – members of the Royal British Legion, celebrated his 100th birthday at the Hayloft at Farmer Copleys in Pontefract on Saturday, June 22.

On D-Day, the Allied forces mounted the largest seaborne invasion the world has ever seen.

In 1944 Operation Overlord saw over 5,000 ships and landing craft set down more than 130,000 troops on five Normandy beaches in an action that marked the beginning of the liberation of France and western Europe.

A service was held on Thursday, June 6, at Wakefield Cathedral, led by the Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt Reverend Tony Robinson, to commemorate the date.