Honoured for D-Day Landings role

THEO Folkes’ memories of D Day are still very vivid and he can recall the shells and the gunfire he experienced during the landings on Sword Beach on 6th June.

Theo was presented with his Chevalier de Legion D’Honneur medal by Lady Hamilton surrounded by his family and friends last Tuesday at the Touchdown Café in Wellesbourne – a fitting venue as Wellesbourne Mountford Airfield played a prominent part ‘in the skys’ during the Second World War. Theo and his family also live in the village.

The medal was in recognition for Theo’s contribution during the D-Day landings in 1944 and the fierce battles that followed and ultimately led to the liberation of France.

He served aboard the Combined Operations Headquarters ship, HMS Largs, as a Wireless Telegraphist, alongside Army and RAF personnel.

Theo was 17 when he volunteered to join the Royal Navy and first took part in the North Atlantic Battles aboard HMS Gentian, a flower class corvette. What he had not realised on joining the Navy was that he was to suffer sea sickness on a regular basis.

Due to injuries he received, his final days with the Royal Navy were served at HMS Flowerdown in Winchester, Admiralty Signal Station for the World, as a Wireless Telegraphist until he was invalided out of the Royal Navy.

Because of the many unpleasant experiences Theo suffered during the war he has never felt he wanted to talk about those days but it does not mean he has forgotten his many colleagues that never returned and feels that the medal is really for those brave people. Like so many, he joined the Royal Navy a boy and returned a man.

Theo is married to Jenny and has two sons and a daughter who were with him to celebrate the occasion and like all who joined him or know of his achievement are extremely proud of him.