DUNKIRK, D-Day and Arnhem veteran, Royston Burton of Queen's Park, has died at the age of 98.

Royston Alfred John Burton, known as Roy, was born in Manston in Kent as the son of a blacksmith, who, after growing up around horses, he longed to join a cavalry regiment.

Speaking to Daily Echo on June 6, 2015, on the news of being appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion d'Honneur, he said that he ended up in the Grenadier Guards Armoured Division as 'the recruiting officer got half a crown for a guardsman.'

He went on to say: "I joined the Guards in 1937 and never expected that there would be a war. But we went as you had to."

Roy was dispatched to the continent with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939. "They gave us five rounds of ammunition each," he said.

"But we were disciplined. At Dunkirk we stood all night on the mole (jetty) while shells fell on either side. We were told not to break ranks." His unit was one of the last to escape during the evacuation.

On his return to England, he met his future wife, Audrey, while she was out boating on the lake in Poole Park and together they later welcomed a son, Peter. Their marriage came only a few months before he embarked for the invasion of Normandy.

Despite the injury he sustained in July 1944 when a shell exploded on the front of his scout car, he returned to Europe and the horrific battles at Arnhem and Nijmegen.

After the war, Mr Burton and his wife settled in Bournemouth where he joined the fire service and worked there for 27 years, ending up as the officer in charge at the old Holdenhurst Road station. He cared for his wife when she fell ill with Alzheimer's before she died a few years ago.

Roy said that he was very proud to add the Legion d'Honneur medal to the six others he had received through the course of his war service. At the time, he said: "There can't be many of us left now to receive this medal."

He lived in his own home in Queen's Park up to the age of 97 before moving to Queensmount Nursing Home where he died on September 4.

Roy's funeral took place on Tuesday, September 13 with donations going to the animal rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing charity, HorseWorld.