Inside heroic story of 90 year-old WW2 vet Bernie Jordan’s daring trip to France that inspired Michael Caine’s new movie

SINGER Elkie Jeffery could not believe her eyes when she opened the message on her group’s website.

“Would the Candy Girls like to take part in a film with Sir Michael Caine about a pensioner who ran away from his care home to join D-Day veterans in France?”

The offer came as a huge shock, but the plot of The Great Escaper — based on the incredible antics of veteran Bernie Jordan, 89 — was no surprise to the group.

Elkie says: “They didn’t realise we knew all about it, because we were there when Bernie made head- lines around the world in 2014.”

The story of how the war hero slipped unnoticed from his care home in Hove, , to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day in France really is the stuff of movies.

Sir Michael, 90, plays the ex-Navy man who took matters into his own hands when staff at his home couldn’t find him a place on an official trip.

‘He looked a bit lost’

In her final acting role, the late Dame Glenda Jackson stars as the war hero’s devoted wife, Rene.

Bernie had been to the 50th and 60th commemorations with the Royal British Legion, but applied too late to travel with them for the 70th anniversary on June 6, 2014.

So, with his Second World War medals hidden under his coat and his passport tucked into a carrier bag, Bernie sneaked out of the Pines Care Home, sparking a massive police search.

He took the train to Portsmouth and joined other veterans on the six-hour ferry crossing to France.

The Candy Girls — vintage-style trio Elkie and bandmates Freyja Sculpher and Debbie Watt — had been booked by Brittany Ferries to entertain the veterans travelling to Caen in Normandy.

Freyja says: “It was absolutely raucous on that ship. They were in the mood to party — there were beers, singing, dancing, flirting and war stories. It was fabulous.”

The girls remember seeing an old chap heartily singing along to You Are My Sunshine at full volume.

Freyja, from Reading, says: “There was one man on a bench by himself with a beer, singing his heart out, with a big toothless grin.

He was very merry. It was Bernie. Clearly he was loving life. It makes sense now because not only was he part of everything, he’d successfully escaped.”

Bernie told the singers how, as a 19-year-old Marine Engineer Artificer — or electrician — he had operated ramps on a landing craft under heavy fire so tank crews could get on to the D-Day beaches.

He revealed: “My job was to make sure the doors of the ship opened properly to let the tanks out.

“We released the tanks from the ship and, out of 20, two or three got badly damaged straight away.

“But the remaining 17 ploughed up the beach.”

As many as 4,000 Allied servicemen died on those Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.

Bernie said: “I was scared, but I used to keep up morale as best I could.

I’m no comedian, but we tried to keep each other laughing.”

He also revealed to the Candy Girls how, earlier in the war, he had been involved in capturing a German Enigma cipher machine, which the Nazis used to send coded messages.

Boffins at Bletchley Park used the seized devices to break the German codes.

In May 1941, Bernie was on board the destroyer HMS Intrepid hunting German U-boats off Iceland.

He told the singers: “I was once on a mission to recover one of the Enigma machines from a U-boat which we’d forced to surface by dropping depth-charges, crippling it.

“We boarded the submarine and recovered the machine.”

At the end of each crossing between the UK and France, the Candy Girls said farewell to the veterans as they joined their tour groups to take part in the Normandy commemorations, which would be attended by the Queen and then US President Barack Obama.

Freyja says: “We’d be waving them off, giving them kisses and having pictures taken as they left.

“Everyone had departed except one man, who stood there holding a plastic bag. He looked a bit lost and we realised it was Bernie. He told us he’d come on his own.”

Elkie, of Islington, North London, says: “We said to him, ‘Where’s your luggage?’. He replied, ‘I’ve got my little bag and in it I’ve got a pair of pants, a toothbrush and my passport. That’s all I need, girls’.

“The manager of the ferry came over and helped get Bernie on to a bus, and that was it really.

“But before he disembarked we had a picture taken with him, said goodbye and sent him on his way. We didn’t think much more of it.”

Across the Channel, frantic staff at The Pines care home had reported Bernie missing and police began checking coaches, railways and taxis for him.

A retired teacher found Bernie a hotel room in Ouistreham, near Sword Beach, and phoned the home to tell them he was safe.

‘I’m nothing special’

Brighton Police Commander Nev Kemp tweeted: “Love this, 89-year-old veteran reported missing to us by care home who said he can’t go to Normandy for D-Day remem- brance. We’ve found him there!”