Overview
- The Taxi Charity for Military Veterans confirmed late Saturday that Donald Turrell died on Friday surrounded by family, and the charity and his children issued tributes to his life and service.
- Turrell enlisted at 17 after forging a parental permission note, a choice he described in later interviews as driven by a wish to serve his country.
- He served as a rifleman with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), landed on Sword Beach in the days after D‑Day and was seriously wounded near Eterville on 10 July 1944 during fighting around Hill 112.
- His children, Andrew Turrell and Linda Baker, and Taxi Charity vice‑president Dick Goodwin remembered him for his warmth, humour and the close bonds he kept with fellow veterans.
- In later years Turrell took part in recorded interviews and charity trips back to Normandy in 2024 and other visits through 2025, and his testimony has been used in public commemoration of the campaign; his older brother Leslie was killed on HMS Penelope in February 1944.