He was 18 years old, a sapper with the Royal Engineers, and he was in the very first wave. He landed at 6:30 in the morning.
Harry was one of only four men from his ten-man section who survived the Battle of Normandy.
After the war, he spent time in hospital, struggling with what he had seen. Then he moved to St Austell in Cornwall, looking for peace and quiet. He opened a barber shop and raised a family with his wife, Sheila.
But he never forgot the boys he left behind on that beach.
For more than 70 years there was no national memorial in Normandy for the British soldiers who died there. Then, in the summer of 2018, a charity started raising money to build one, overlooking Gold Beach.
Harry got their brochure in the post. “I read it from cover to cover,” he said. “I started collecting the same day I got the brochure.”
He was 93 years old.
Every day, he stood on Fore Street in St Austell with his collection tin. He went to Par Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He talked to everyone who stopped, young and old, and told them about his friends.
His first idea was to collect £1 for each of the 22,442 servicemen under British command who died in the Normandy campaign.
He raised far more than that. Coin by coin, Harry collected more than £50,000.
When people called him a hero, he stopped them. “Don’t thank me and don’t say I’m a hero,” he told the BBC. “I’m no hero, I was lucky, I’m here. All the heroes are dead, and I’ll never forget them as long as I live.”
In 2020, he was made an MBE for his fundraising. France awarded him the Legion d’Honneur. A train company even named one of its trains after him.
The British Normandy Memorial opened in June 2021. Carved into its stone columns are the names of the men Harry never forgot.
Harry Billinge died in April 2022, at the age of 96. He once said he just wanted to be remembered as “a good old sapper who did his best.”
Will you remember Harry and his friends today? Tell us in the comments.
