Amazing life of Wolverhampton D-Day veteran who has died aged 101

A Normandy veteran who gave the Princess of Wales advice on how to live a long life has died aged 101.

Bill Redston, who escorted a convoy of essential supply vessels, died peacefully at Bridge Manor care home in Wombourne.

He met the Princess of Wales at an Armistice Day commemoration last year, where he told her plenty of exercise had been crucial to his longevity.

But his life might have been cut short were it not for a last-minute change of plan during the D-Day landings of 1944.

Bill, who was just 18 years old when he received his Royal Navy commission, was First Lieutenant on motor launch ML191 and trained with American forces at Slapton Sands in Devon in preparation for the Normandy invasion.

His motor launch was designated the lead boat for their assault on Utah Beach, but just four days before D-Day, it was replaced by an American ship. The US boat was blown out of the water in the first half hour of fighting, making it the first allied vessel to be sunk in the landings.

He later reflected that he might not have survived the war were it not for the late change of plan. Instead his boat was sent to escort a convoy of essential supply vessels to Utah Beach the day after it had been invaded by American troops.

Bill was born in Maidenhead in 1924 and spend most of his childhood in the Thames Valley. He joined the Royal Navy Coastal Forces as a commissioned officer, and a few months later he became First Lieutenant on ML 191, where he served throughout the Second World War.

He and his crew regularly travelled to the coast of occupied France to collect ‘British spies who needed to get out in a hurry’, as he put it.

After the Normandy beaches had been secured, Bill and his motor launch travelled 7,000 miles to Rangoon in Burma, now Myanmar, where he spent the rest of the war patrolling up and down the Irrawaddy River searching the jungle for Japanese soldiers.

After the war ended in the Far East, he spent some time in Singapore in charge of Japanese prisoners of war, before coming back to the UK in 1946.

On returning to civilian life, Bill became a civil engineer with the Wolverhampton-based construction company Tarmac, and helped build the UK’s first ever motorway, which at that time was called the Preston by-pass, before later becoming part of the M6.

He worked in construction for nearly 30 years, and then worked part-time for Dudley-based cardiac rehabilitation charity Action Heart, before finally retiring in 1994 at the age of 79.

He lived in Wolverhampton for more than 60 years, settling in Tettenhall.

When he celebrated his 100th birthday in November 2024, he told how it was the Navy which gave him is love of fitness.

"From that day onwards, I was quite keen to do any sort of sports, or running, or anything like that that I needed to do," he said.

He ran the London Marathon in 1990, when he was 65 years old, and took part in the New York Marathon the following year ‘just to prove that London wasn't a one-off’.

Son Chris said he was also a member of his local cycling club well into his 80s and could still walk more than a mile until well after his 100th birthday.

Chris said his father was one of the first volunteers to work at the National Memorial Arboretum, now the RBL National Memorial Gardens at Alrewas, near Lichfield, when it opened 25 years ago.

He was instrumental in establishing the Royal Navy Coastal Forces Memorial there, also known as the Rock of the Sea.

In 2021, at the age of 96, he spent three hours walking the entire length of the Arboretum to hug 100 trees, raising £2,000 for conservation charity Rainforest Trust UK.

He attended major commemoration days at the Arboretum, including the 75th anniversary of VJ-Day 75 in 2020, where he met the then Prince Charles and Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He returned for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in 2024, where he met the Duke of Edinburgh. In 2025 he was a special guest at VE Day 80, where he again met the now King Charles.

He also attended VJ Day 80 and Armistice Day last year, where he had an audience with Catherine, Princess of Wales, who asked him for advice on how to live a long life. He told her that exercise had been crucial to his good health.

Bill received the Legion d’Honneur medal from the French ambassador for his services on D-Day in 2021, which he said was one of the proudest moments of his life.

He died during the early hours of May 27.

Bill was married twice, first to Maeve Breen, and after her death to Jean Barmer, who predeceased him. He is survived by three children, two grandchildren and seven

great-grandchildren.

“He will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him,” said Chris.