D-DAY naval veteran Tom Barker celebrated his 100th birthday today with a card from the king and a military salute outside his home, during which he was presented with the Veterans’ Medal.
“I have had some bad times sleeping, and last night was the worst, because I’ve been worried that I wasn’t going to make,” he said, “but it has been marvellous – all this carry on with the navy and the army and all the people here. It has been very good.”
The Royal British Legion provided standard bearers and a bugler, and Commander Ian Berry, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Durham, presented Tom with his Veterans’ Medal at his house in Haughton-le-Skerne, Darlington.
“We owe a huge debt of gratitude, and it is important that we recognise the service and sacrifice of our veterans, particularly those Second World War veterans who fought valiantly and triumphed to protect our country and the freedom we enjoy today,” said Cmdr Berry.
Tom was born in Ingleton in 1924 into a family of railwaymen, although his father, Joseph, had made it through the First World War with the Durham Light Infantry despite being injured three times.
At 15, Tom left school to start at Faverdale wagon works, but when he was called up in 1943, he was working on a farm at Walworth.
He was sent to America on the Queen Mary liner to collect his frigate, HMS Duff, which had been built by the Americans under the Lend-Lease scheme and given to the British. After training in Canadian waters, Duff became the first of those Captain class frigates to destroy a U-boat.
On D-Day, Tom was keeping the seas clear so men could land on the Normandy beaches.
“We had to sleep on the deck because there were U-boats – you saw their glass dome going along the surface of the water,” he said, sitting in his small front garden surrounded by family and friends.
“We sunk four of them, the second was inshore off Sword beach, and the following day, 150ft away, one of our ships was torpedoed, and I remember seeing four lifeboats hanging from it and then this torpedo came alongside us, as close as that gate, and went underneath them. We were so lucky.”
A few months after D-Day, HMS Duff was hit by a mine. Three of its sailors were killed, and it was effectively destroyed, so Tom was posted to the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious and sent out to the Pacific where he came under kamikaze attack.
Two of the suicide planes exploded on Victorious’ deck, but it withstood the blasts, and Tom vividly remembers discovering a pilot’s decapitated head among the wreckage.
But on the lighter side, when Victorious arrived in Sydney, Tom was placed in charge of the Women’s Royal Naval Service quarters.
After four years’ service, he was demobbed and spent much of the rest of his life working in the motor trade on Albert Hill.
He married Margaret in 1952 and they moved into the home on Hutton Avenue – one of the first council houses in Haughton – where he lives today. They had seven children, 12 grandchildren and plenty of great-grandchildren now scattered around the world.
“It has been a fantastic day,” said his son, Richard, who organised the event. “It’s been a fitting tribute to him.”
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