War veteran Dennis to return to France (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

War veteran Dennis to return to France

A MALMESBURY man who was one of the first to land in Normandy on D-Day will be returning to France to commemorate the 60th anniversary this Sunday.

Dennis Mason, 86, served with the 13th/18 Hussars during the war and will make the poignant trip back to France to remember his comrades who never returned home.

He said: "It is just engraved on your mind - your friends that are no longer with you."

Dennis arrived on the beach in the early hours of June 6, 1944 by using an ingenious floating tank which although weighing 20 tons, floated via an air pocket in a 12ft canvas sheet that rose above the tank.

The tank had to be launched into the water at just the right moment, to avoid catching the propellers on the launch craft.

He said: "There was no-one in front of me- only Germans."

Dennis was awarded six medals for his war efforts, including one presented to him 50 years after the landings by the mayor of Hermanville, a town liberated by Allied troops.