AN emotional three-part TV series starring Pembroke Dock D-Day hero Ted Owens is being shown on ITV next month.

In Lest We Forget, Ted tells the story of his war to two young children who travel with him to the battlefields.

One of the children, Evan Lewis, described what happened.

“Ted Owens is a remarkable veteran of the Second World War. He fought and almost died on D-Day and then took part in major battles in the Netherlands.

“I’ve known Ted for a few years, and so has my sister Caoimhe. Ted is friends with my dad, who has travelled with Ted many times.

“When ITV Wales, who my dad makes programmes for, heard that the four of us were going to attend the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy in June, they asked if we could film it.

“A plan was formed: take the ferry to Ouistreham, which is close to the beach where Ted landed on June 6, 1944, attend events in Normandy, meet other veterans, and go to the Netherlands to see where Ted was wounded for the second and third time.

“We also later came up with an extra part to the plan, which we kept secret from Ted.

“Ted is an amazing character. He was coming up to 95 when we travelled. I was nearly ten and Caoimhe just eight. Apart from needing some help to walk and having a little difficulty hearing, Ted is still well and he loves to travel.

“The first part of our trip was to see the place where Ted was on D-Day. Ted was a commando and he landed at a place called Lion-sur-Mer, which was codenamed Sword Beach.

“Here Ted told us the story of his terrifying moments on the beach. Shells were landing everywhere.

“After firing at the German soldiers who were defending the beach, Ted was caught in a blast. A medic thought he was dead but then his eyes moved.

“Hearing Ted tell the story at the very spot where it happened was like an amazing history lesson. My sister said she was glad Ted had survived so that we could know him.

“I had researched some of a war diary kept by an officer in Ted’s unit.

“I told Ted that at the end of D-Day about 140 men from his unit were dead, missing, or wounded. ‘I was one of them,’ Ted said. I think there were tears in his eyes. He could not talk too much.

“Ted was emotional too when we went looking for the graves of his dead friends in a cemetery nearby. He was tired so Caoimhe and I had to lay a cross for him.

“At various Normandy commemorations we saw Ted being treated like a film-star. I tried to keep a log of the number of times he had his photo taken. I counted more than 1,000 in four days in France.

“Ted came back to the war in August 1944, and fought his way up to Belgium. He then took part in landings at the island of Walcheren in the Netherlands. As he drove there with us, Ted suddenly spotted the place where two of his friends had stepped on a mine and he had been wounded.

“Ted’s war ended just before Christmas 1944 when he was shot in the throat. His friends went on into Germany but Ted was sent home.

“For our trip we decided to take Ted across the Rhine for the first time. He did not know until we were driving there.

“At a museum in Emmerich-am-Rhein, we met people who were my age during the war. Like Ted, one of the main things they remembered most was the sound of hundreds of bombers.

“It will be the year 2104 when I am Ted’s age now. D-Day will then be 160 years ago.

“I know that whatever age I am I will remember my once-in-a-lifetime journey into history with Ted.”

Lest We Forget begins on Wednesday, September 18, at 8pm on ITV Wales.