D-Day veteran tells GB News about moment he knew WW2 ended - two days before the King found out

A D-Day veteran has told GB News about the moment he found out that World War II had ended, before the King learned the news.

Bernard Morgan, a code-breaking specialist who landed on Gold Beach on June 6, 1944, spoke to the People's Channel ahead of the release of a a book entitled ‘A Century of Memories’, which has been written in his honour, with all profits being donated to the Royal British Legion.

He said: “I was the youngest RAF sergeant to land in Normandy on D-Day, and my youth and innocence did not prepare me for what I saw through a small square window in our vehicle.

“The beach was littered with British dead bodies: some had been shot, and others carried in by the incoming tide.

“It was a sight never to be forgotten, as I had never seen a dead person before.”

Asked if he felt the sacrifice made on D-Day was worth it, he said: “No, it wasn’t. For all those sailors, soldiers, airmen, airwomen, and civilians to get killed. 20,000 civilians got killed in the whole of the war.

“And it’s really sad to see that it's still going on with the Ukraine war.”

As with many D-Day survivors, Mr Morgan has always said he does not believe he is a hero.

“Those who gave their lives are the real heroes”, he said.

Aside from his memories of D-Day itself, Mr Morgan also reflected on the very specific role he played as part of the British war effort.

He was a frontline codebreaker, so it was his responsibility to lead a team and to decipher messages they would be sent.

He explained that: “They received messages in groups of five scrambled letters, then passed them to me. I set five drums up on a machine called a Type-X machine, and they decoded the messages.”

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He added that most of the messages came from the army, advising where they wanted specific RAF aircraft and when.

Then, on May 6, 1945, Mr Morgan received an incredibly important telex on his machine - so important, in fact, that despite museums asking him for years, he has always kept hold of the original copy.

He said: “I got a telegram to say the war in Germany would finish in two days' time. Nobody to be advised. And then I got a telegram two days later, in code, to say the German war is over.”

That marked VE Day, and celebrations erupted across the continent. But Mr Morgan knew two days before anyone else on home soil.

“Even the King didn’t know!” He added.

Speaking about his team on D-Day - the young men whom he was sergeant to - he described three men.

They were all killed during the fortnight they spent in Normandy.

When asked how he remembers them, he told this story: “They’re buried at a cemetery called Ryes, next to Bayeux.

“Well, every time I go, I put three little crosses on the graves. One time, when I came up from one, a lady came up to me and said ‘Do you know those airmen?’

“So, I explained how I knew them, and said, ‘Do you know them?’ She told me ‘yes,’ and that one of them was a relation, and then she started crying on my shoulder.

“She said, ‘I’m so pleased that somebody else, all this way from home, is looking after the grave.”