IT would be the best birthday present ever for Southampton’s oldest D-Day veteran.

As Ernie Spacagna celebrated his 95th birthday yesterday, he said that seeing two new walls of remembrance honouring the city’s war dead would be one of the greatest gifts of all.

The former Royal Army Service Corps driver has lent his support to the Daily Echo-backed campaign to build the new commemorative monuments next to the Cenotaph in Watts Park.

They will list all those who died in the First and Second World Wars and all subsequent conflicts.

Southampton City Council has already pledged £50,000 to the project, leaving around £70,000 to be raised by businesses and the public.

Ernie, who lives off Bugle Street, said: “It’s important these walls are built to show that people who lost their lives in conflict have not been forgotten.

“Like me they should have all been able to grow old, but sadly they did not.

“The walls will help remind people who did not live through all these wars about the sacrifices that were made. Otherwise people will remain ignorant.”

Ernie was one of thousands of men who landed on the Normandy coastline at dawn on June 6, 1944 to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny.

As a Dodge Tipper Truck driver he worked with the Royal Engineers Service Corps to build the Bayeux bypass and cleared debris from bombed-out towns and villages.

After the Second World War the father-of-four went on to run a hairdressing salon in Park Road, Freemantle, cutting the hair of hundreds of regulars, including Saints legend Ted Bates.

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Ernie said he would himself make a donation towards the cost of the walls and urged businesses to do the same.

And he said his wife Kathleen, who died two years ago, would have been pleased to see the walls of remembrance. “She did a lot of work for the British Legion,” he said.

Southampton and Fareham Chamber of Commerce is running the fundraising appeal with the support of the Royal British Legion’s Southampton branch.

The council came up with the idea of the remembrance walls because it couldn’t foot the £300,000 bill to restore the Cenotaph and its faded names, although it will continue to maintain it.