Many of those D-Day heroes made it their ultimate sacrifice; AIR FORCE VETERAN RECALLS FATEFUL WARTIME LANDINGS

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 6, 2008

Byline: By DAVID OLD

AN eerie silence met Catherine Brightwell as she emerged from an operations room 60ft underground.

Soldiers who had filled the streets in the weeks and months leading up to June 6, 1944, had vanished.

They had upped and left with little warning to the people living in the little town transformed into an army camp.

Just hours later, many would be dead, having made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the freedom of generations to come.

Today Mrs Brightwell recalled the fateful day which signaled the beginning of the end of the Second World War in Europe.

And she hopes to keep the memories alive of those who perished.

D-Day, as it later became known, saw Allied forces take on Hitler's Nazi Germany with a two-phased attack from air, land and sea to drive Nazi forces back from Normandy, France.

Mrs Brightwell, of Kielder Terrace, North Shields, was one of many who volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and headed down to London in 1940 to help.

The now 85-year-old was a plotter - charting all incoming enemy planes on to a map. She said: "Without the sacrifice all those people made, there wouldn't be life today - it would be terribly different.

"There aren't many of us left now alive who were there."

She clearly remembers climbing the stone steps from the underground bunker where she had been working since 7am on the day of invasion.

At the time, she was known as Leading Aircraft Woman Catherine Trainer and worked from the base in Uxbridge, Middlesex.

She said: "This was the day we had all been waiting for. We had guessed this was about to happen, but it could not until the Commander in Chief gave the word to go, and he would not give the word until the weather was right. We had suspected several weeks before, because suddenly the small town of Uxbridge began to fill up with soldiers.

Every street was lined with tanks, armoured cars and lorries.

"The small country town had been turned into an army base.

Soldiers camped in their front gardens and soldiers cooked meals in field kitchens by the side of the road.

"This situation was multiplied many times over. I am told it was the greatest armada ever seen.

"I had gone on duty at 7am and had an extremely busy shift.

"When we came up out of the 'hole', our name for the ops room 60ft underground, we went down into the town.

"We were amazed to find the soldiers and all the trappings of war had vanished as though they had been spirited away, swiftly and silently, as if by magic.

"Many of those brave heroes made it their ultimate sacrifice and many civilians who lived in the coastal towns of Europe had also been killed as the battle raged.

"Brave fighters of the underground were also slain, those who had fought so valiantly while their country was occupied by such cruel masters. Heroes and heroines, all of them.

"They were ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

"It's 64 years since that day of destiny, and it is as clear in may memory as though it happened yesterday.

I will never forget those who made the success of D-Day possible."

D-Day facts

The Normandy Landings were the first operations of the Allied Powers' invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Neptune and Operation Overlord, during World War II.

The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault landing of American and British airborne divisions shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the coast of France commencing at 6.30am.

The operation was the largest single-day invasion of all time, with over 130,000 troops landing on June 6, 1944.

195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel were involved.

The landings took place along a stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sections: Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword and Utah.

CAPTION(S):

64 YEARS AGO TODAY: Allied troops begin the 1944 D-Day invasion; FOR THE CAUSE: above, Catherine Brightwell today and, below, during the war