A Second World War veteran was honoured with a special Chinook flypast as his funeral took place in Bridport.

Geoffrey Litherland died on September 3 aged 96.

He was living at Fairfield House in Lyme Regis before he died and the special flypast was organised by his great nephew, who is in the RAF, for his funeral on September 24.

Geoff and his twin brother, Ron, joined the home guard in the Second World War but were ultimately called to join the army at the age of 18. Following training, they joined the 2nd Battalion KSLI in Inverary and continued training before travelling down to Haywards Heath to train for the forthcoming assault on mainland Europe. They were shown maps but with no names and just had to remember the shape of the map to know where they were going.

On D-Day, Geoff embarked onto a landing craft in Shoreham and after a very rough crossing, landed on Normandy’s Sword Beach at 10.30am. They fortunately were able to drive unopposed swiftly up the beach and made their way towards Beuville in preparation for the assault on Caen.

Despite shelling on the road they got as far as a Chateau in Beuville, and rapidly set up the mortars and dug in behind a wall surrounding the chateau, which had been a previous HQ for the German army, who after their rapid evacuation, was subsequently set on fire by them. Geoff remained in this position for one month, until finally commencing the attack on Caen.

Following the attack on Caen, Geoff, over several months, covered many miles across France and continued through Belgium into Holland.

From Holland the twins continued into Germany where dad contracted infective hepatitis and was admitted to a British hospital, just outside Brussels, for several days.

The battalion was also sent to Brussels and prepared for the assault on mainland Japan, which never occurred, as the Japanese army surrendered a week later.

Geoff and his brother Ron finally caught a boat home in late 1945 and both were finally demobbed in the summer of 1946.

Geoff’s son, Paul Litherland, said: “The previous four war years of my dad’s life filled his every waking moment until the day he died. It was an enigma to me why he always remembered those years with such emotion and enjoyed talking and reading books about the war, when so many soldiers would often not talk about their experiences. Io think it was the comradery that developed between him and Ron and fellow soldiers at such an early impressionable time of his life.

“He read exclusively about World War II, watched many a television show which recounted the war, went to Holland with me, for commemorative ceremonies and we now have many friends there. Last year we even went to Normandy for 5 days on the Royal British Legion sponsored cruise Liner, the Boudicca, and attended several 75th D-Day celebrations. The highlight for dad was the touching service at the Bayeux cemetery which was captured on live TV and showed dad and me.

“I have many happy memories of dad over the years and feel so blessed to have him in my life for the last 71, years. Time spent driving around together, seeing beautiful views, cups of tea and scones, meals out, watching films of D- Day, going to Holland and France together for many D-Day commemorative services. We moved him to an excellent care home, Fairfield House in Lyme, with such panoramic views of the coast and the Cob. I could walk down the road and see him every day.”