D-DAY veteran Bob White was one of the first to hit Normandy's shores and saw five of his 30-strong battalion fall even before reaching the beach.

He was shot at and eventually sent home with a bullet in his shoulder.

But throughout the trials of war, Bob always made sure he kept in touch with goings-on in Southamp-ton - by reading copies of the Daily Echo his mum sent out to him.

"I would get them about three weeks late to wherever we were

stationed, but it kept me in the know on what was going on here," said Bob, who lives in Oakmount Road, Chandler's Ford.

"With all the bombing going on in Southampton, a lot of us were more worried about people at home."

Bob was just 26 when he landed at Arromanches beach with the 50th Northumbrian division.

He said: "In my landing craft there were 30 of us and five of them didn't make it to the beach.

"We had 60lb rucksacks on our backs and all we had was a blow-up lifejacket that didn't hold your weight. If you went out of your depth into a hole, people just didn't come up again."

He was sent back to Haslar hospital with a gunshot wound in August, two months after arriving in France, and later was given an administration job.