WW2 veteran holds back tears as he recalls being captured weeks after D-Day

A Second World War veteran who was captured as a prisoner of war just weeks after D-Day and was forced to march hundreds of miles was brought to tears as he remembered being reunited with his mother 10 months later.

Ken Hay almost did not make it back home to Barking when he “lay down to die” as he fell during the three-month march, but his friends came back to help.

The 98-year-old, who served in the 4th Dorset infantry regiment, went to Normandy on 22 June 1944, then was on night patrol on 8 July when he was captured and forced to work in coal mines in Poland.

He returned to the UK on 4 May 1945.