D-DAY survivor Sam Langford, a familiar happy face at veterans’ reunions in Oxfordshire, has died.

Members of the Oxford branch of the Royal Green Jackets Association said they were saddened by his loss.

Mr Langford’s passing aged 95 comes soon after the death of fellow D-Day veteran Vernon Jones, from Steventon, who died aged 94 in April.

Association member Roy Bailey said: “We are all saddened by the loss of Sam.

“He was a regular at barracks’ lunches and other events until he was too frail to attend.”

Mr Langford leaves wife Edna, 92, daughters Marion Hall and Vivienne Wilkins, and four grandchildren.

Ms Hall, who lives near Leamington Spa, said her father died peacefully in the John Radcliffe Hospital on Saturday.

Two years ago Mr Langford, who was born in Wantage and lived in Didcot, travelled to Oxford so he could receive his Legion’ d’Honneur medal, the highest decoration bestowed on war veterans by the French.

Then aged 93, the father-of-two, who joined the Army aged 17, was one of a number of veterans who gathered to receive the prestigious medal at Oxford Town Hall.

Mr Langford was in the 5th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment for the June 6 D-Day landings in 1944 and later transferred to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

He said at the medals ceremony: “We boarded a ship from Sandbanks headed for Normandy. We anchored off the beach because the sea was rough.”

Mr Langford had not been prepared for the carnage he witnessed on Juno Beach, part of the German-held coastline that was attacked by 156,000 allied troops.

He said: “We stopped and had to get out to wade ashore – that’s when all the action was going on.

“We marched inland. Until that day I had never seen a dead human being, but on my right-hand side there was a British soldier lying there with a tin helmet on his face.”

He swapped his black beret for a red one after volunteering for the airborne services.

Remembering the Rhine Crossing operation he said: “We took off in these wooden gliders, headed for Germany. Sitting at the back together was Corporal Tapping and me.”

The plane was shot down, killing the corporal and leaving Mr Langford walking wounded.

After the war he served as an officer in Thames Valley Police until his retirement.

A date for the funeral has not yet been arranged.