A "one-in-a-million" D-Day veteran who flew into Normandy on a military glider and survived being shot by machine gun fire from a tank has died aged 100.

Bill Gladden, from Haverhill, Suffolk, was serving with the 6th Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment in 1944.

He was shot in the leg by the Germans 12 days after landing in France and spent the next three years in hospital back in the UK.

Mr Gladden died at home earlier on Wednesday.

The then 20-year-old had been with his unit near the French village of Ranville, close to the strategically important Pegasus Bridge which it was tasked with protecting.

On 17 June 1944 he carried two wounded soldiers into a barn being used as a medical post, before being carried into the same barn two days later when he was shot while brewing tea.

*Earlier report and his story from January 2024 here:    • Bill Gladden (100) D-Day veteran in t...  

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