A 90-YEAR-OLD D-Day veteran jumped ahead of Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift to top one of the UK’s biggest singles charts.
Second World War veteran Jim Radford, who is thought to be the youngest surviving combatant from the D-Day landings, has lept to the summit of the Amazon Singles Chart with his powerful ballad The Shores of Normandy.
The Hull-born veteran became an overnight sensation thanks to the emotive track, which describes the events surrounding the day he and his comrades “stormed the gates of hell” back on June 6th, 1944.
Radford will use any money raised from the success of the single to fund the construction of a British Normandy Memorial, featuring the names of the 22,442 men and women serving under British command who died that day.
Radford was just 15 when he took part in D-Day in what was his first trip to sea.
He served as a galley boy on a deep-sea tug during the invasion, helping to construct artificial harbours in northern France.
Radford found himself at the centre of a major social media campaign put together to help get The Shores of Normandy to umber one in the UK singles chart.
Though the song failed to make the top 40 when it was released last Friday, it has proven a hit on Amazon, the world’s biggest online shopping website.
The retired merchant seaman and shanty singer’s newfound fame comes as the UK prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Radford has overtaken Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s song I Don’t Care, which has slipped into second, with Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy at number three.
