D-day veteran who ‘escaped’ care home left RNLI £600,000

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/war-veteran-escape-care-home-d-day-rnli-bernard-jordan

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A war veteran who slipped away from his care home to attend last year’s 70th anniversary D-day events and his wife have left their estates to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the charity has said.

Bernard Jordan died aged 90 on 30 December, six months after he was nicknamed the Great Escaper following his cross-Channel adventure last summer.

His wife Irene died seven days later, aged 88. The couple’s estate, worth about £600,000, has been left to the RNLI, the charity’s officials said in a statement.

RNLI chief executive, Paul Boissier, said: “This is absolutely wonderful, unexpected news. Bernard’s story charmed the nation last year when he journeyed from his Sussex care home to France to commemorate the D-day landings.

Related: D-day veteran, 89, who ran off to France for anniversary: 'I'd do it again'

“That spirit, that determination, is embedded deep within the psyche of our volunteer lifeboat crews who go to sea to save others in peril on the sea.

“I am delighted that the couple chose to leave us this sizeable donation, and their contribution, like those of Bernard’s veteran peers, will never be forgotten.”

An RNLI spokesman said the legacy came as a surprise but believed the couple’s admiration stemmed from Jordan’s time in the Royal Navy in the second world war.

Jordan, known as Bernie, travelled to D-day events in Normandy wearing his war medals and grey mac.

His disappearance sparked a police search on 5 June and his whereabouts emerged only when a younger veteran phoned that night to say he had met Jordan and he was safe.

Jordan, an ex-mayor of Hove, told reporters on his return that his aim was to remember his fallen friends.

Some 156,000 Allied troops landed on the five invasion beaches on 6 June 1944, beginning an 80-day campaign to liberate Normandy that involved three million troops and cost 250,000 lives.

Jordan had hoped to return to Normandy this June. Brittany Ferries, which carried him across the Channel last summer, offered him free crossings to D-day events for the rest of his life after learning of his exploits.

After his death, the Royal British Legion said Jordan’s decision to go to France highlighted “the spirit that epitomises the second world war generation”.

On his 90th birthday, days after he returned from his journey, he received more than 2,500 birthday cards from around the world.

Jordan was later made an honorary alderman of Brighton and Hove in a special ceremony at Brighton town hall.

He joined an elite list of people to receive the honour, including Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, former Olympic champion Steve Ovett, and first world war hero Henry Allingham, who became the world’s oldest man before his death aged 113 in 2009.

A funeral service for the couple will be held in East Sussex on Friday.