Second World War Normandy veteran says key to a good life is freedom

A Second World War veteran who fought in Normandy 80 years ago as a teenager before becoming a prisoner of war has said the key to a good life is freedom.

Doug Baldwin, from Caddington in Bedfordshire, landed in northern France aged just 18 three weeks after D-Day in June 1944.

He was later captured by German forces and made to work in coal mines while spending nine months in multiple Stalag camps.

The now 98-year-old said he was “always lucky” and was concerned that future generations would rely heavily on getting what they want “by pressing a button”.

Doug grew up in Sheerness, Kent, as one of seven children, and said he remembered “the drone of engines” as enemy bombers flew up the nearby Thames estuary.

He enlisted for army training at Colchester and kept in reserve before being sent to Normandy on a landing craft on June 25 1944, to serve with the 6th Battalion King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

Speaking to the PA news agency about his experience, Doug said: “All the way over I was quite calm. It was still an adventure to me.”

He said many people waved and blew him kisses as he left British shores, adding: “I felt like a hero before I even landed in Normandy.”

Doug moved with his regiment through northern France after landing and recalled the chaotic and precarious nature of life on the front line.

“There were many occasions where there was nobody to tell you what to do. You had to think for yourself,” he said.

“There was very little difference between being brave or stupidity.”

Doug was captured alone in the small village of Estry on August 8 that year, after taking cover from German fire in a disused house and being stunned by a nearby explosion.

“When I came to my senses there were these two nasty-looking, unfriendly gentlemen.

“I thought I was going to die, but it didn’t bother me. I didn’t think it was going to hurt much.”

Instead of being killed, he was taken to a car with a gun pointed at his head before eventually being transported to Germany in a railway truck, reported as arriving at Stalag 12A on August 28.

Spending time in several camps, Doug said prisoners were treated “like you were cattle” and got to “think like an animal” as he ate dandelion leaves.

He recalled the suddenness of leaving the camp when it was liberated by Allied forces.

“We woke up one morning and we could not see any guards about.

“We were walking towards the sound of the guns, which turned out to be the American lines.”

Doug returned home via Paris on May 1 1945 – one week before VE Day – and said he remembered the sun rising as he came across the cliffs of Dover on the journey back.

He was suffering from malnutrition and starvation and was “as thin as a rake”, and still has a photograph of himself which he sent to his youngest brother Peter a few weeks later.

Despite his previous hardships, Doug went back to Germany after the war ended with the Royal Scots Fusiliers to serve in the Army of Occupation.

He relocated to the Luton area for work and described himself as a “jack of all trades, master of none”, working in a variety of jobs including at Vauxhall and Luton Airport.

Doug married his second wife, Sheena, in 1953 and has lived in the same house in Caddington since 1958.

The veteran has visited Normandy many times, most recently in May, through trips organised by the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, which he said had given him “a new lease of life”.

He received the Legion d’honneur, France’s highest military honour, in 2021 in recognition of his service during the war.

Asked what the secret was to a good life, Doug said: “Freedom to do what you want.”

He added: “I was always lucky – for some reason they kept missing me!”