The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A presentation ceremony took place last Saturday for two D-Day veterans awarded France’s top military honour.
Spalding’s Tom Fowler, who will be 97 next month, and Donald March, of Matlaske in Norfolk, received the Légion d’honneur from Jean-Claude Lafontaine, Honorary French Consul for the East Midlands, in recognition of their efforts in liberating France.
The emotional ceremony at The Lighthouse Church in Haverfield Road was organised by Ken Willows, chairman of the Spalding Branch of the Royal Lincolnshire and Royal Anglian Association.
Tom, of Wygate Road, said: “Words can’t explain the pleasure I was getting out of it.
“It was really marvellous – the whole set-up.”
In June 1944, Tom was part of Operation Overlord in the Caen region and came under fire from six-barrel mortars.
Donald’s daughter Marion Shepherd told Saturday’s event how her dad was on the SS Jim Bridger, which anchored off Omaha Beach.
She said: “[It] was under constant attack, as were the whole flotilla and Donald was kept occupied by identifying the enemy and allied aircraft, communicating his observations direct to the ship’s captain by radio.”
More on Tom’s story: our report last November when he received news of the award.
