PLANE VIEW
Former World War 2 veteran, 99, gets into Spitfire cockpit ahead of D-Day anniversary
Dorothea Barron said she will likely be in tears at the celebrations next week due to the enormous sacrifice of the forces on D-Day
WAR veteran Dorothea Barron got into a Spitfire cockpit today at the age of 99 as part of the countdown to D-Day 80.
The former Women’s Royal Naval Service signaller was delighted to view the fighter plane.
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She was at Biggin Hill, a former World War Two airbase in South London, with ex-servicemen who are set to travel to France next week.
Their trip to mark the 80th anniversary of the June 6 invasion is organised by a vets’ charity.
Dorothea, of Bishop’s Stortford, Essex, was 18 when she was posted to Scotland for secret tests on temporary harbours Brit forces built in 1944.
She said: “I shall probably be in tears most of the time at the enormity of what the forces did, and of the casualties.
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“Those young men gave their lives so willingly.”
In the summer of 1944 during the campaign to liberate Normandy, 22,440 servicemen and two women under British command were killed.
The victory of D-Day became the turning point for World War II in Europe.
The German Army suffered a catastrophic defeat they couldn't recover from.
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