Royal Navy sailors have provided a guard of honour at the funeral of a man believed to be the last naval Dunkirk veteran, 102-year-old Lawrence Churcher.
Churcher, who was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, died this month at a care home in nearby Fareham days before his 103rd birthday.
In pouring rain, Churcher’s coffin, draped in a union flag with a navy hat on top, was carried by pallbearers from the Royal Navy into Portchester crematorium for a private funeral service attended by family and friends.
Project 71, a charity that supports second world war veterans, posted on Facebook: “A truly remarkable man, loved and respected by all who knew him. Stand down Lawrence, your duty is done. It has been an honour to have known you.”
Churcher was posted to HMS Eagle at the start of the war and landed in France in May 1940 to help supply ammunition to the frontlines and was posted to a railhead outside Dunkirk.
The charity said: “When he, together with thousands of others of the BEF [British Expeditionary Force] was ordered to pull back to the beaches, he began looking for the Hampshire regiment in the hope of finding his two brothers, Edward and George. Amazingly they met each other and managed to sail back to the UK on the same ship.”
Churcher previously said: “When my brothers found me, I just felt relief. There were so many soldiers there and continuous aircraft dropping bombs and strafing us. I had so many things on my mind until I got onboard of our ship.
“One fella leaned on my shoulder, gave a sigh of relief and said: ‘Thank God we’ve got a navy,’ and that sort of churned it up inside of me. We knew we had to get those soldiers back from Dunkirk.”
Churcher served in the Mediterranean, at D-day and in the far east. He was awarded the French Légion d’honneur. He later became a football referee and then Portsmouth FC’s oldest supporter, having been been an “out and out” fan since his first visit in 1928.
