'I was lucky, many of my shipmates were not...Stan's tribute to lost pals

EMOTIONAL D-DAY COMMEMORATION

- Giles Sheldrick

ROYAL Navy hero Stan Ford yesterday paid a tearful tribute to his D-Day pals lost at sea.

The decorated sailor has spent 79 years ravaged with guilt that he survived a deadly torpedo strike on HMS Fratton which claimed the lives of 31 of his crew.

Stan was ferrying men and supplies across the Channel during the Battle of Normandy. A few months later HMS Fratton was struck on August 18, 1944.

The explosion was so powerful the gun platform Stan was manning was blown off the ship, with him still strapped to it, and he was launched into the water, unconscious. He woke up floating in the Channel, fighting to stay alive.

He was rescued, but the horrific injuries he suffered left him walking with callipers for the rest of his life.

Stan, 98, made an emotional return to the exact spot where HMS Fratton rests, a one-mile voyage off the coast of Arromanches.

Survival

It was here on June 6, 1944, that tens of thousands of soldiers started to swarm ashore at Gold Beach as D-Day began.

Yesterday was the first time Stan - or anyone had visited the site where the cargo vessel now rests. Heavy swells meant he had to be helped to toss a wreath into the sea in tribute to the men who never returned home.