Pontypool man Don Jones was air-dropped into occupied Europe in the early hours of D-Day in an action which saw the liberation of the first village in France. He tells Martin Wade of his pride in wearing the red beret.

IT TAKES an enormous effort of will to jump out of a plane. To do so under enemy fire takes even more strength of character. Spry at 92, Pontypool man Don Jones still has these qualities in spades.

In the early hours of D-Day in 1944, he leapt into the dark skies above Normandy and helped liberate the first French village from Nazi occupation and played a part in one of the most daring operations of the war.

When he joined up in July 1943, Don admits he was, “full of vim and vigour”. When he volunteered for parachute training he was interviewed by the unit’s psychiatrist. “He said if you were normal I would send you back to your unit. If you were a bit daft they accepted you!”

The training was hard. “Everything was done at the double. We had to run across hills in battle order as a platoon.” He remembers with a chuckle climbing Pen-y-Fan in the snow with a 56lb machine gun on his shoulder. “It was mighty cold though” he recalls with a shudder.

“All jumps were difficult. If people said they weren't scared, they were telling lies. Some men kissed the ground when they landed.

“It was a very proud moment to get your wings and from then on you always made sure your arm was on display. We were an elite - it was always instilled into us. When you got your red beret and wings you believed it - you felt you were different.”

By May of 1944, his unit, 13th (Lancashire) Parachute Battalion was taken “to the south of England somewhere”. They were driven around for hours so they wouldn't know where they were. Dan recalls: “When we got to the airfield, we weren't allowed outside the fence, we weren't allowed to mention where we were in letters.

“We were eventually told what we had to do. Others would be taking some bridges and we were to put defences up around them. We were told they were important bridges.”

Although he knew no more than this, his battalion had in fact been tasked, as part of Operation Tonga, with securing the area around the River Orne and Caen canal bridges. These were to be captured by troops landed by glider.

By June 5 they were told to get themselves ready. “We went to the aerodrome where we waited by the runway. We were told to get some sleep on the edge of the runway.” At midnight they were woken and told to get ready.

Don says there was little sense of a huge armada taking to the skies for France. "All I was aware of was our unit, on our aircraft. That was your life, we didn't know what else was happening."

The four-engined Stirling was a converted bomber and had no seats. "We had to sit on the floor.”

"A big container of coffee was passed around. The flight was only a couple of hours. Time seemed to have no consequence."

Anti-aircraft shells exploded in the sky around them. "They were the most beautiful patterns dancing around the sky. It was like being at Blackpool for a display - but so much more dangerous."

When the time to drop came, the paratroopers were stood up back-to-back. Don was more heavily-laden than most. "I had my tripod in a pack and another pack fitted to my leg. Every other gunner had their gun and tripod in separate containers. I had to run down the aircraft as we started jumping."

The jump went well for Don. "I got out of my harness, folded my chute and got ready to go the rendezvous point." Don was one of the first allied troops to land in occupied Europe. The gliders of carrying the troops to capture the bridges had come down shortly before.

Alone in the dark, he saw a figure approach. "He was about 100-200 yards away. I called the password 'Overlord' and there was no answer."

As a machine gunner, the only weapon Don had ready to fire was his Colt automatic pistol. "I shot all my eight bullets at him and he shot a load at me. Neither of us seemed to do any damage."

There was no hesitation at his first contact with the enemy: "I was there to kill Germans. He didn't like me and I didn't like him."

Quickly moving away, Don met the rest of his battalion at a nearby quarry from where they headed for their objective, the nearby village of Ranville. “We went to the east side of the River Orne and we had to put up defence around the boys on the bridge.”

Much of the battalion, however, was scattered and only sixty percent of them formed up to move towards their objectives.

He and his mate Charlie King had dug in by a hedgerow near a racecourse. Don spotted a German patrol. He opened fire - a decision which he would come to regret.

"Like a fool I opened up. Whether I hit any of them I don't know, but I gave our position away." The patrol disappeared, but about an hour later, they would feel the German response. "There was a terrific explosion to the rear" he recalls. A self-propelled gun had found them and began to pound their position.

"After a few minutes, Charlie called 'Taff, I've been wounded' and I replied 'Charlie, don't bugger about'". But Don found that his pal had a shrapnel wound in his shoulder and took him to the first-aid post in the village which had been taken at around 4am.

He didn't know it but this would spell the end for end for his brief and violent baptism of fire. "I felt something in my leg, like a bramble had scratched it." A medic took a close look and found Don too had been struck by shrapnel. "So by about 10am, that was it for me. I was shipped out from Ouistreham the next day and taken to a military hospital in Gosport near Portsmouth."

On August 20th he was back in Normandy and rejoined his unit. After the stunning success of June 6th when a beach-head was established, the campaign in Normandy had bogged down. Don was sent to Pont Leveque, a village barely 25 miles from Ranville, the village he had helped liberate two months earlier.

There, they waited to attack as artillery rained down around the village, "turning it to rubble" he remembers. Mortars then rained down and they were withdrawn. By September rather than squander these specialist troops in an infantry role, they returned to England.

The 92-year-old still returns to Ranville on June 6 where he often talks with locals and visitors on what happened that day. This Sunday too, he will remember both that fateful day when he was dropped into Nazi-occupied France and his comrades who no longer can.