Meet 6 of Britain's last surviving WW2 heroes whose amazing stories you simply must read

Ruth Bourne

Wren Ruth Bourne, 99, worked as a link in the chain of codebreakers at Bletchley Park, intercepting Nazi messages .

She was among the young women hand-selected to operate the Bombe machine, an electro-mechanical device created by mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing to crack the German Enigma code.

Ahead of D-Day her job was to decrypt enemy material and translate it differently from the original so the Germans had no idea the allies were reading top-secret information about manoeuvres in Northern France.

At the time Ruth was unaware of the magnitude of the task at hand and it was only in the decades that followed she discovered her seismic part in helping win the war.

She said: "I didn't really comprehend the enormity of what was going on. Now I know how important the work was. I was very privileged to have been chosen."

On VE Day she recalled: "There was an electric buzz among everyone and eventually the royals came out and waved, and we cheered like crazy, waving whatever we had on us. People climbed on every available lamppost, lit bonfires in Hyde Park and we sat around singing songs. Not many went to bed that night."

As the nation marks VE Day, six remarkable veterans of the Second World War reflect on a day of mixed emotions. Each played a very special part in securing the freedoms Britain enjoys today but all deny they are heroes, insisting only that a "job that had to be done". Here they share their memories of the day the war in Europe was declared officially over.

Henry Rice

D-Day hero Henry Rice, 99, who was aboard HMS Eastway ferrying soldiers and supplies to the invasion beaches of Normandy, wears the glittering gongs pinned to his chest with enormous pride.

But he said: "Hero? Not me. The heroes are the brave boys we return to honour and remember. We must never forget their sacrifice."

Henry, a recipient of the Legion of Honour, France's highest order of merit, delights in spending time with other vets and his joie de vivre is summed up in a story he cheekily but quietly recounts about the time he was scolded for - quite innocently - leaning in for a peck on the cheek when he was presented to the Queen at a recent official event. "Apparently", he said, "that is very much a no no".

With a chuckle he added: "VE Day is an excuse to be happy. After all we went through I want to be happy and I want everyone else to be happy. All I want is happiness and love for what is left of my life and I hope everyone else feels the same."

Marie Scott

In 1944 Marie Scott was 17 and working as a switchboard operator with the Women's Royal Naval Service in the subterranean network of tunnels at Fort Southwick, Portsmouth, the nerve centre monitoring the D-Day invasion fleet. When troops were talking on their radios she could hear every blood-curdling sound from across the Channel.

Marie, who turns 99 in June, said: "In my head I was in the war because what I heard was machine gun fire continuously. Men shouting. Men shouting orders. Men screaming. It must have been horrifying on those beaches.

"The Germans had machine gun nests that were very well concealed and they just mowed them down as they went on the beaches, and I could hear all that."

Eight decades have passed but the years have not dimmed memories which remain indelibly etched in her mind.

On Thursday she will take her seat alongside the King and Queen at Westminster Abbey for a service of commemoration.

Marie said: "We felt it was our duty to stand up and serve. Our country was in danger and we rose to the occasion. It really was that simple.

"I will never forget the mood on VE Day. It was pure, unbridled joy. There were millions of people, it was like a surging sea, and you were swept off your feet. I have never known so much joy. We never thought the war would end, so it was a relief. It was a justifiable war because the Nazis were evil and that's why I decided to join - to help the country.

"The atmosphere in London was joyous.

"I went out with a friend from Portsmouth and she was in civvies. I went in uniform, and because I was in uniform, we received the attention of a lot of males. We had to suffer loads of kisses and hugs, and I must say most were not bad. We certainly entered into the spirit of things.

"There was an air of celebration because we had defeated what we considered to be an evil force.

"And it showed to us all that human beings can sink to the depths of depravity, but also rise to the greatest heights.

"We shall go down in history [but] I think this will be my last chance to saviour it and take it all in.

"I don't fear dying. I have had a good life. I have two beautiful daughters, three lovely grandchildren, and the last seven or eight years I have had a ball. Old age has almost been a pleasure."

Dorothea Barron

Sprightly Dorothea, 100-years-young and still teaching yoga, lied about her height so she could join the Women's Royal Naval Service in 1943. She taught soldiers how to use semaphore and transmit morse code ahead of D-Day and was involved in testing Mulberry harbours, prefabricated concrete ports used to ferry troops and equipment during the landings.

She said: "I really shouldn't have been in the services. I was supposed to be 5ft 3ins and there is no way I was ever 5ft 3ins. I think they took pity on me and thought 'poor thing she's so keen to come we will let her in'.

"I stood very tall and they said, 'Hmmmm'. And then they saw I was so determined, so they allowed me to crawl in."

She added: "I felt I had a purpose. I had really done something...I wish it had helped the poor chaps landing better. But we couldn't stop the Germans bombing them on the beaches."

Robbie Hall

Queenie, better known as Robbie, 102, also lied about her age to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at 17, and was one of the plotters with Bomber Command, led by Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, who hatched a plan to blitz Nazi Germany into submission by reducing the Third Reich's industrial heartland to rubble.

Her fiance - a bomb aimer - was killed when his Lancaster was downed during a raid. At the time they were both just 21 and she was living with his mother.

She said: "If you stopped to think about it, which I've done in later years, he was shot down. Did his plane burst into flames? Did he get burnt alive in the plane as it came down? Did he get killed on impact? Did it burst into flames on impact? What did they find of him?

"We were both 21. How young we were. What did we know? We hadn't lived. Liberation for me was tinged with the fact my boyfriend was killed."

Peter Kent

The lifelong fighting spirit of this unmatchable generation is encapsulated by Peter Kent.

Just days after mustering for the glittering gathering the 100-year-old Royal Navy warrior went into battle again - this time against the Government which stubbornly refused to fund veterans' trips abroad after earlier promising it would.

Wheelchair-bound Peter was a crewman on HMS Adventure, a support and repair vessel that helped troops, supplies and reinforcements land on Gold Beach at Arromanches.

Able Seaman Peter, 21 on D-Day, said: "It is so sad that so many boys got killed and so sad to see all the memorials when I return.

"I watched friends fall beside me fighting for freedom. We gave everything."

After his intervention ministers finally relented, proving beyond doubt the same spirit that helped win the war still burns as strong today as it did all those years ago.