Veteran visiting Normandy on D-Day anniversary to ‘pay respects to shipmates’

Alec Penstone, 99, was a submarine detector on HMS Campania on D-Day.

A Royal Navy veteran plans to visit Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day to pay his respects to his shipmates.

Alec Penstone was a submarine detector on HMS Campania and was stopping U-boats on D-Day.

The 99-year-old said: “I wasn’t in the actual landing, I was there but we were protecting the convoy going across.”

His job was to stop any U-boats attacking the invasion force going across to France.

“I think we succeeded in doing that,” Mr Penstone added.

D-Day veteran JAlec Penstone, pictured at the age of 20 (Blind Veterans UK/PA)

After the war finished, Mr Penstone said he was kept at sea searching for three rogue German U-boats which had not surrendered.

He added: “We knew they were in northern waters, but they hadn’t surrendered, and we had to find them.

“We searched all in and out all the outlying islands of Norway, and we finally discovered they’d scuttled their boats in a remote part of Norway, made their way back through Norway if they ever got that far back to Germany rather than become prisoners of war.”

Mr Penstone said after that he was sent back to the barracks.

Asked if he was proud of the work he did during and after D-Day, he said: “Certainly, no doubt about it.

“I’m very pleased I’m still alive to tell it.”

Alec Penstone receives a kiss from the D-Day Darlings at an event organised by the Spirit of Normandy Trust, in conjunction with the British Normandy Memorial, at the Union Jack Club in London — Mr Penstone receives a kiss from the D-Day Darlings at an event organised by the Spirit of Normandy Trust, in conjunction with the British Normandy Memorial, at the Union Jack Club in London (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Mr Penstone plans to travel to Normandy with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, which he said is “the most magnificent charity that I’ve ever known”.

“My heroes are all those that went to Normandy and their gravestones are there now,” he said.

The veteran plans to go to pay his respects “to all my shipmates who lay with those white gravestones above them”.

D-Day veterans Alec Penstone (second right), 98, who served with the Royal Navy, shakes hands with Ken Hay (right), 98, ambassador for the British Normandy Memorial who served with the 4th Dorset Regiment (Gareth Fuller/PA)

The last time he was in Normandy he was shown the grave of his cousin who had to crash land just before midnight on June 5.

The great-grandfather, who is based in the Isle of Wight, said: “He was a real hero and there was no question about it at all.

“And last time when I was over in Normandy the wonderful people I was with actually found his grave 31 miles away and I really thank them for that.”