TWO Normandy veterans were recognised on Sunday with the Légion d'Honneur for their part in liberating France in 1944 at a ceremony in Salisbury.

Sergeant Roy Golding, 91, from Wilton, and Private Geoffrey Young, 94, from Shrewton were both serving with B Company 4th Battalion The Wiltshire Regiment when they landed at Arromanches shortly after D Day.

They soon were plunged into the thick of the battle fighting through France and into Germany. Both were involved the attempted relief of Arnhem, the crossing of the Rhine and were in Germany for the surrender.

During the campaign Roy survived with pieces of shrapnel in his chest and deafness in one ear after a grenade explosion while Geoff often ran a gauntlet of fire in his Jeep, in his role as the company commander's driver. In fighting around Nijmegen, on September 20, 1944, Geoff was shot in the neck and blown up but survived despite the bullet remaining lodged in his neck for the duration of the war.

At the end of the war the Battalion was moved to Hanover where Geoff met an interpreter, a young girl called Magrit Drieksen who he drove around to meetings. Geoff was demobbed and returned to the family road haulage business in Shrewton but corresponded with Margrit and, in 1947, invited her to England and were later married.

The pair were presented with the Légion d'Honneur during a Drumhead Service at the Wardrobe on behalf of the French President by General Sir Kevin O’Donaghue, Colonel of the Royal Berkshire, Gloucester and Wiltshire Regiment Association.

"It was a marvellous ceremony, really fantastic," said Geoff. “Roy and I did every battle from the day we landed to when we got to Belsen.”

“It was a very moving day," Roy added. “Me and my friend Geoff met up when we joined the Wilts went all the way through the war together.

“When we were in the trenches, Geoff came up every day through all the shell fire with food for us, he was marvellous.”