Family to visit soldier's war grave to mark D-Day

Abby Gummery will be attending the 80th anniversary service in Normandy

The family of a soldier who died on D-Day will be visiting his grave in Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion.

David Hughes and Abby Gummery, from Coventry, will attend a service at the British Normandy Memorial in France on 6 June and pay respects to Cpl Norman Clare.

Cpl Clare, 23, was killed by a mortar bomb moments after he disembarked from a boat on Sword Beach during the landings on 6 June 1944.

Mr Hughes, Cpl Clare’s nephew, said he was expecting it to be an emotional experience, despite having never known his uncle.

“I’m really looking forward to going there and paying my respects to him,” he told BBC Midlands Today.

“I never knew him but I knew his brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles. They were all good people so I should imagine he’d have been no different.”

David Hughes said he was expecting it to be an emotional occasion

Ms Gummery, Cpl Clare’s great niece, said he was her grandmother’s favourite brother and was often mentioned in conversations they used to have about the family.

“He actually looked like my nephew. Same sort of nose and facial features. It’s quite strange but it’s nice to see,” she said.

“It would’ve been nice to have met him and been a part of his family but obviously we weren’t around.”

Mr Hughes said Cpl Clare left for Normandy to take part in the D-Day landings having already lost his mum and one of his brothers earlier in World War Two.

Both were killed during the air raid on Coventry in April 1941 when a shelter was hit by a bomb.

Cpl Norman Clare died on Sword Beach in Normandy during the D-Day landings

“It was a shame to lose so many of that generation - same with the First World War. It cost us a generation of young men,” Mr Hughes said.

“All wars are futile but if we’re going to fight it, you have to respect the people doing it.”

Ms Gummery said it was important to remember the people who had died in the conflict, adding: “War still goes on today and people are giving up their lives to give us our lives.”