Veteran Donald Turrell, who lied about his age to enlist in the British Army at 17 and subsequently fought in Normandy, has died at the age of 101. Turrell, born in London in 1925, forged a letter from his parents to enlist in the Scottish Cameronians as a rifleman.
He landed on Sword Beach in France in June 1944, days after D-Day, and engaged in combat with German forces. During the Battle of Eterville on July 10, 1944, he was injured by a mortar blast near Hill 112 while under Operation Jupiter. Despite his injury, he used his rifle as a crutch to report the situation before being evacuated.
Tributes have been paid to Turrell, with the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans announcing his death on Friday, stating he died surrounded by his family. The charity's vice president, Dick Goodwin, described Turrell as representing "a generation whose courage and service we will never forget."
Turrell recounted in an interview last year that he was 17 when he enlisted and told the Army he was 18. He expressed a lifelong desire to be a soldier and to contribute to defending his country. He described the crossing to Normandy as both "excited and apprehensive," with his initial experience of the war being the sight of bodies washing ashore.
His wartime service concluded weeks after his landing when he was medically discharged following his injury at the Battle of Eterville. Turrell also lost his older brother, Leslie, a telegraphist on HMS Penelope, when the ship was sunk off the Italian coast in February 1944.
In 2024, Mr Turrell revisited the French village where he fought, marking his first trip back to the area since the war. He was also pictured in August 2025 alongside fellow veterans at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
