D-Day hero's final wish... a medal for his service

Don, 100, hopes to get French gong

- BY ADAM ASPINALL

ONE of Britain's last surviving D-Day heroes is in a race against time to fulfil his final wish to receive a medal recognising his role in the historic invasion.

Don Butt, who celebrated his 100th birthday this month, said he would feel complete to be awarded the Legion d'honneur, given by France to survivors of the landings on June 6, 1944.

Don signed up to the Royal Marines when he was 17 and just a year later was part of the landing crew in the first wave at Juno Beach.

His officers told him he was “too young” to disembark fully on to the beach.