A DECORATED war hero and D-Day veteran who has received the Legion D’honneur award and served Chard’s Royal British Legion for more than 50 years has been given a special award by the mayor.

Arthur Helbert, 95, was given an award for outstanding service to the town, as well as special recognition from Chard mayor, Cllr Dave Bulmer, and a standing ovation at Chard’s Annual Parish meeting last Tuesday.

Mr Helbert was born in Bodmin in Cornwall on March 6, 1922, to a military family, with the previous three generations all serving in the forces.

His father was in the 2nd Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI), and this saw Arthur spending some of his childhood posted in the Channel Islands and Aldershot as well as in the South West.

When Arthur was about 12, his father finished 21 years of service in the army and went away for a training course. Soon after, his father vanished, leaving his mum to bring up Arthur and his younger sister Molly by herself.

In April 1937, Arthur’s life changed forever when he joined the Royal Engineers after a recruiting officer told him “the best thing you can do is join the engineers.”

At this point living in St Ives, Arthur realised that all the work in the area was regional and now agrees that signing up was the making of him.

After a year of training Arthur was posted with the 59 Field Squadron Royal Engineers in the spring of 1938.

As the war broke out, Arthur travelled the country as a specialist electrician for the army, supporting squadrons in Tonbridge, Stepney, Portsmouth, Aldershot, before he started training for what he calls “the big show”, D-Day.

He was sent around the companies making sure their charges and explosives were all ready. While at work in Gosport he was told the day had arrived and the squadron needed to depart for Normandy. With his work not yet finished, Arthur boarded with the group and set sail for France.

Of the crossing, Arthur said: “It was normal for me. I just got in and got my head down. Most of them were sick as dogs.”

Then D-Day came, June 6, 1944, and the squadron reached Sword Beach.

“All I remember is the stench, the noise, and the fumes. The battle ships were deafening,” Arthur said.

“Everything was going off. There were dead bodies flying around all over the place. Then we got in and got to work clearing lines for people to get off the beach.

“We came ashore and we were disabling beach obstacles. We were on the Eastern side of the beach and we had the Canadians inside of us. We were going most for the day. We didn’t really stop until we all started to move.”

As the Allied forces retook Europe, Arthur toured the frontlines helping to build Bailey bridges in the place of ones the Germans had demolished.

He spent Christmas in Holland and saw the trails from German V2 rockets streaking across the sky, travelled across to Hamburg and then moved back down to help build the war’s biggest Bailey bridge to help forces cross the Rhine.

After the war Arthur worked as an electrician where he met Beryl, the secretary who he would later marry.

They married in 1947 before moving to Taunton to bring electricity to all the farms surrounding the town who were running on generators.

Arthur and Beryl moved to Bridport and then, in 1963, they bought the house Arthur still lives in now in King Alfred Drive in Chard.

Arthur became involved in the town’s branch of the Royal British Legion almost as soon as he had moved the town and at his first meeting was made branch treasurer. Soon after, the branch was also looking for a chairman, so Arthur took over that role.

In 1992, the county came calling, needing a chairman for a group of branches, so Arthur became a county committee member and chairman of seven more branches known as the Middleney group, which included Somerton, Langport and Crewkerne.

In 1994, Arthur handed the chairmanship of the Chard branch over to John Gudge and took up the role of branch president.

The two men served and kept the branch running together for 22 years until they both stepped aside last year.

As well as his involvement in RBL, Arthur also volunteered for a number of groups egged on by his wife Beryl, also an outstanding service award winner before she passed away 10 years ago.

Eight years ago, Arthur had news that his father had passed away and discovered that he had three more sisters he had been unaware of.

He has three children, Greg, Sarah and Andrew, and five grandchildren, Laura, Charlie, James, Anastasia and Brook-Alicia.

Clive Sanders, the mace bearer for Chard and current president of Chard RBL, nominated Mr Helbert for the outstanding service award.

He said: “I cannot stress how highly regarded Mr Helbert is by the members of the Chard Branch.

“He has been very active indeed in promoting the branch and has long continued to have a very hands-on approach to ensuring the success of the Branch, especially in ensuring that the branch is managed successfully.

“He has also proudly played a significant role in Chard’s annual Festival of Remembrance, and has recited the Exhortation and Kohima Epithet during the Remembrance Day services for many years.”