Tributes paid to D-Day hero and 'most loving' great-great-grandfather who died at 98

The daughter of D-Day warrior Ron Butcher broke down as she paid tribute to the man who just "got on with the job". Merchant Navy hero Ron suffered nightmares from his time during the Normandy Invasion of 1944.

The seaman was serving aboard liberty ship Francis C. Harrington which carried vehicles, ammunition, supplies, equipment and 515 Canadian, American, Irish, and Polish soldiers for the Allied push into Nazi-held Europe. In the eight decades since, he suffered survivor's guilt, apologising that he was five miles offshore and did not experience the unimaginable horror of what unfolded in front of him.

Ron, a father of five daughters, from Thetford, Norfolk, died on Monday at 98.

Christine Lincoln, 61, said: "I will remember him as the most loving dad anyone could have had. He was a real family man.

"He was very self-deprecating and didn't want to show off. He just got on with the job.

"He didn't have to sign up but he did when he was 15 to avoid going down the mines. He didn't want to be a Bevin Boy (those conscripted to work in coal mines during and immediately after the Second World War)."

Ron, who leaves 16 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren, was 17 on D-Day and stranded at sea with U-boats and enemy aircraft circling his vessel. From his vantage point could see the full horror of what was playing out on the blood drenched beaches in front of him.

In June, the Daily Express accompanied Ron, and fellow D-Day warrior Don Turrell, 100, to Juno Beach in Normandy for the 81st anniversary of D-Day.

Wheelchair-bound Ron said: "I recall the sky being black with smoke and not knowing if it was day or night at times, and the illumination and sounds of explosions, gunfire, bombs, and men screaming. It was hell on earth.

"We were five miles off the beach waiting to offload but you didn't know the difference from daylight to darkness. It was midday and it was dark and horrible. The skies turned black with bombs.

"I could see the action on the breaches. Juno, our beach, was being fired on. The guns kept going. But the Americans got it worse. They died in their thousands."

Ron's ship - the first American-flagged Liberty to be damaged during the landings - struck two mines off Omaha Beach and five men were killed. The crew plugged gaping holes with mattresses to prevent water entering the hull but became sitting ducks for six days before they were towed back to England.

During his time on the stricken vessel Ron plucked dead soldiers and hauled body parts from the water - a job he described as "horrific but necessary for the men going in the next waves of the invasion".

Speaking to the Express alongside her father in Normandy Christine said: "Dad didn't want to especially come back but his family persuaded him because the world needs to be educated on what happened and at what cost.

"And this quite possibly could be the last time he is able to return."

Ron, who served on convoy vessels during the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign of the war, was awarded the Imperial Service Medal and the Legion of Honour, the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit.

His wife Grace, to whom he was married for 63 years, died in 2015.

Christine said: "When we played up mum used to say 'just you wait until your father gets home'. When she did we knew we had won because dad was fantastic. He was one in a million."