VE Day 80: Yorkshire veteran held as Prisoner of War speaks of his experience for the first time

Now, for the first time ever, the 101-year-old from Pudsey shares his experience of captivity and interrogation.

This marks a moment, he said, to remember a debt owed to the fallen heroes of war.

“Here we are at the 80th anniversary of VE Day," he said. "I was still in a PoW camp when the war ended.

"It’s such a special moment for the country and should remind us all of what we owe those who fought and those who lost their lives."

Mr Herring, an RAF veteran, was a leading aircraftman on the Halifax heavy bombers. He would take control when it was on a bombing run.

Lying flat in the nose of the plane, his job was to direct the pilot before releasing the bombs. But then he was shot down, at just 19, and taken captive for the final 14 months of war.

Today, for the first time, he tells his story with the help of the Royal British Legion (RBL).

“I’ve never really spoken about it before, just with close family," he said. "But it’s a part of my life that comes to the forefront of my mind every now and then.

“At the time it was something we felt we had to do."

Mr Herring signed up in 1942. His parents were fearful, but he felt the RAF trained them well. He became a bomb-aimer on a seven-man team, serving with 158 Squadron at Lissett.

He can recall around seven missions. He was never scared, he said. The journeys were in fact quite long and boring, and they always felt safe in the Halifax.

"It was a well-armed bomber so we had quite a lot of teeth and we defended ourselves well, thanks to the gunners,” he said.

"We always had the same team, and we became good friends. Sometimes you could be airborne for several hours and we would travel in complete silence."

But on 30 March 1944, the crew was shot down returning from a bombing raid on Nuremberg.

“We all survived, but we had to bail out,” said Mr Herring. “I landed on my own in the Belgian countryside, and had to ditch my parachute and find cover.”

Soon, the teenage airman was picked up by the Belgian police, who handed him over to the local German garrison. Some five of the crew were captured but two - the navigator and the rear gunner - were able to meet up and escape with the French resistance.

Herring was taken to a police station for interrogation before being held at PoW camps in Lithuania, Poland and Germany. He was held captive with Flight Engineer Leonard Robinson.

Eventually, Herring was released and flew home just after VE Day, at the end of May 1945. He spent his working life as an engineer, starting at crane makers Joseph Booth & Bros.

This year, to mark the 80th anniversary, he has been invited to join the RBL's anniversary tea party and service of remembrance on Thursday, May 8. It will bring together the largest gathering of Second World War veterans.

"I hope everyone joins in the spirit of the celebrations," he said.

There are fewer veterans surviving today to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of war in Europe.

Jack Mortimer, a D-Day veteran who landed on Sword Beach, is among them. Last year, he travelled to Normandy with the RBL to honour the fallen. Every time he returns to walk among the white gravestones, he said, they seem to speak to him in silence.

He can still hear his comrades' call. It's 80 years since the end of war in Europe. His memories are as vivid as if it were yesterday.

Mr Mortimer, of Seacroft in Leeds, was 19-years-old when he was given a train ticket to start his Army training for the outbreak of war. He had never been further than Cleethorpes.

Now aged 101, he said it is impossible to forget the sheer numbers of lives lost. He cannot count the thousands who didn't come back.

"Those are the ones we should remember," he said.

Mr Mortimer's training was in Portsmouth, for the Ordnance Corps. They were taking care of stores, so there was practice driving under fire. Suddenly, it was time to move.

"We were going for the invasion, but we didn't know," he said. "That was the beginning."

He was put in charge of a Jeep, with a trailer for ammunition and petrol. On the morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944, he woke up halfway to France. His ship landed near Sword Beach.

"I won't say it was frightening, not frightening," he said. "It was apprehensive certainly. But when the French coast came into view, well, I knew that was it then.

"There was a great big cordite smell because all the guns were going off. And the great big ships in the channel were firing over our heads. It was really noisy and smelly."

As the bow doors opened, he was first off the ship. He describes his own Normandy landing, on one of the bloodiest days of the Second World War, as quite easy.

"It's difficult to imagine that you look left and right and see hundreds of ships all along the coast, almost every hundred yards, a landing craft, discharging vehicles and men," he said. "It was noisy, very noisy, shells screaming over the top of us, gunfire going off, and the beach master shouting, 'Get off the bloody beach!'"

Mr Mortimer cleared the devastation, he found his friends. In all chaos, there was a military precision. And for every one of the fighting troops there were five or six others, he said, "working their socks off" to keep them going.

In the days that followed teams worked to clear the roads of debris. Moving towards Antwerp, they became a target for bombers, searching the rubble for any survivors. And it was here that he was stationed when the end of the war came.

"We had a gigantic party," he said, remembering VE Day. "Everybody was happy and it was a great relief really that there was no danger now again. A feeling of great relief."

But even amid the celebrations, there is a sense of sadness to his memories. Every time he returns to Normandy, he visits the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Bayeux and another at Ranville.

"If cemeteries could be called beautiful, then they are beautiful," he said. "All the gravestones are immaculately in line, not a blade of grass out of place.

"It's very emotional, as being an ex-soldier to walk down those lines of gravestones. And sometimes, I think, sometimes they speak to you in silence."