A HERO from the US Army who left Weymouth to take part in the Normandy landings has made what he thinks will be his last journey to the resort to remember his fallen comrades.

Cliff Guard, 90, fought in the Allied invasion of German-occupied France at Omaha beach during the Second World War.

He would later help liberate some of Hitler’s death camps, where he witnessed at first hand the Nazis’ cold-blooded ‘final solution’ genocide operation.

The Swansea resident came on holiday to Weymouth last week with his wife Maggie.

He donned his medals and full uniform in the scorching temperatures of the recent heatwave and spent a reflective moment by the US War Memorial on Weymouth Esplanade.

Cliff said: “This brings back a rush of memories from June 1944. We left from Weymouth and the water was terrible.

“The sea was rough and it was cold and raining and we were confined on a ship.

“I remember standing in the street and seeing Weymouth Bay turn completely black because there were so many ships in there. I’ve also been looking at the Cenotaph and that has brought back a lot of memories of being in Weymouth, going to Omaha and that terrible June.”

Cliff Guard grew up in Swansea in the 1920s before escaping the poverty caused by the Great Depression by running away to the Merchant Navy at the age of 15.

After spending four years at sea, which included taking part in the North Atlantic convoys after war broke out in 1939, he found himself living in New York.

Having heard how Wales was being hammered by German bombs, he decided to join the American Army.

Cliff was keen to return to the ballroom where he saw Glenn Miller play before heading across the channel to Omaha beach.

He went back to the Royal Hotel on the Esplanade, where the big band musician performed.

Cliff said: “I remember hearing the music from outside, thinking it was recorded music.

“We went inside and then we saw Glenn Miller. I was with my friend Trix and we were only 17 or 18-years-old. He had two left feet and he couldn’t dance but he was desperate to dance.

“He ended up dancing with this big lady and he attempted to do a waltz and slip his hand down from her waist.

“All of a sudden he stopped and shouted: ‘I don’t want anything to do with you. You can’t even dance!’ And he stormed back.”

Things got more serious a few days later when Clifford, who was in the Third Armoured Division of the US Army, headed across the channel to France. He said: “The landing craft we were on was enormous. I remember thinking that we didn’t know anything about the beaches of Normandy and where we were going to. It was like it was one big secret. When we got to Omaha beach it was like hell.

“We went from there to a field and we had to take all the equipment, and from coming ashore that took around four or five hours.

“I remember being there and having a 50 calibre machine gun.

“At times it was so hot the gun would seize up.

“The engagement with the Germans was so fierce, there were hundreds of thousands of them there. I remember having to kill Germans. What was going on, you just couldn’t describe it.

“One time I was hit on the nose by a piece of shrapnel. I was lucky.”

Cliff helped liberate two concentration camps on the German border. He said: “I’ll never forget some of the people we saw coming out of there, they were like walking skeletons.

“I shook hands with one of them. He had shaky little hands.

“He was Polish but he said something to me in German, I couldn’t understand him. He died right there in front of me, he went straight down.

“We were too late to help him.”

Clifford was demobbed from the army when he got back to New Jersey in the US. He then made his home on Staten Island.

“That’s when I decided to get myself an education,” he said.

“I did quite a number of things.

“I was a prison psychologist in Indiana for years. I went to live in Saudi Arabia and worked for the Arabian American Oil Company.

“After that I worked for different companies as a psychologist.”

It wasn’t long before Clifford became homesick for Wales.

He said: “You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.

“I worked for the Alcohol Drug Advisory service as a psychologist.”

After divorcing his first wife, Cliff married Maggie. He said: “Maggie is so important to me. She’s more than my wife, she’s my best buddy.”

Last year the pair were invited to one of the Queen’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace.

Maggie said: “We didn’t realise it but we were told that the Queen had spent around 20 minutes talking to us. She said to Cliff: ‘How did a little Welsh boy end up in the US Army?’ “I spoke to her about how she helped out in the war and would drive an ambulance.

“I told her that as a result of her family my name is Margaret Elizabeth because my mother was such a royalist.

“We had a good chat to her and Cliff was asked to speak to Prince Edward in private because the Prince is so interested in hearing about the war.”

South Wales Evening Post reporter Geraint Thomas is currently writing a book on Clifford Guard called GI Limey.

See facebook.com ‘GI Limey’ for more information.

Do you have photos or memories of Glenn Miller performing in Weymouth?

Contact Looking Back on 01305 830973 or email joanna.davis@dorsetecho.co.uk