EXCLUSIVEFull touching story of veteran who brought Queen to tears telling how he lost his pal on D-Day

The D-Day veteran whose story of heroism brought Queen Camilla to tears joined the navy at just 17 years old to ‘do his bit for King and Country’, his family have revealed.

Since the end of hostilities Eric Bateman has rarely spoken about the terrible events of June 1944 and his part in the historic D-Day landings in Normandy.

But his family have given an insight into the bravery that inspired Eric to stand up in Portsmouth yesterday and remember the fallen heroes of the Allied invasion of Europe 80 years ago.

‘Eric was in the Home Guard as a teenager and he was determined to do his bit for King and Country as soon as he was old enough,’ his daughter-in-law Sylvia Bateman told MailOnline.

‘His friend Fred had joined up first, because he was older than Eric and he went into the army.

‘But Eric didn’t want to ‘square bash’ – march all day – so he joined up with the navy. He was only 17 and a half.

He took part in D-Day, but he has never really told us what happened. But we know that his friend Fred was killed.

‘Fred was from Bromley, like Eric. They were pals.’

Born in 1915 on a small holding farm in the hills of the North Downs, in Bromley, Eric, lost his mother at a young age. His father Bill was a farmer.