Dancer recalls D-Day memories on 80th anniversary

A D-Day veteran who entertained soldiers fighting in France has recalled her memories on the 80th anniversary of the World War Two operation.

Betty Beckers, 100, volunteered as a dancer to keep British soldier’s spirits up as the Allies pushed back against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Ms Beckers, who lives at the Goldbridge Bupa Care Home in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, said she was “very proud” of her experience helping the war effort and being able to tell memories to her family including dancing on makeshift stages.

She said one of the hardest moments was seeing the bodies of soldiers from the Devonshire Regiment, the county where she was born and grew up.

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She recalled how soldiers with the regiment had previously treated her to their emergency brandy ration when they found out it was her 21st birthday and she was from Devon too.

Ms Beckers, who lived in Surrey as a young adult, was called Betty Addison when she joined the Entertainment National Service Association (ENSA) during the Second World War and toured the UK to keep up morale.

Her dance group went to France in the wake of the D-Day landings to entertain the troops.

She told BBC Radio Sussex: “We went over by boat across the English Channel.

“Eventually they said for everyone to come up on deck.

"At the water’s edge as far as I could see were all the prisoners of war waiting to come on board back to England.”

Her diary from the time recounts how she described hearing anti-aircraft guns in the night, seeing German mines and witnessing makeshift burials.

She added: “We came off the boat (and) sat on top of a Sherman tank.

“The sad part of this was where we landed at Arromanches, where the Devonshire Regiment had gone.

"At the sides there were bundles of bodies of the regiment who they didn’t have time to bury.

“They put up a cross and their name which said their regiment. We went a bit further and came across four men from that regiment.”

Speaking of how the soldiers reacted to their dancing, she said: “In the beginning the reception was very good, but soldiers just wanted to walk with us.

"It wasn’t so much about being entertained; they just wanted somebody from home.”

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