A Second World War veteran whose wartime job was to plot the position of huge German guns that could fire across the English Channel has returned to France after 60 years.

John Stoddard, from Cradley, was posted to Cap Gris Nez when he was just 18.

His return visit was part funded by the National Lottery's Heroes Return scheme.

"I don't regard myself as a hero because the fighting had past by the time I got to the site of the cross-Channel guns," he said.

"I suppose the remarkable thing was I was only 18 when I went there and it was an exciting experience."

Mr Stoddard's wife Avis went on the trip, as did his Australian-based son Michael and daughter and son-in-law Kate and Greg Johnson.

After joining the Royal Engineers (Survey) in 1942, Mr Stoddard was sent to Cap Gris Nez, near Calais, in 1945 as a surveyor attached to a Directorate of Fortifications and Works party.

He surveyed and plotted the positions of the four-storey emplacements which were manned by a crew of 70 and housed the 16-inch German guns.

The guns were part of Hitler's formidable line of defences round the north French coast - the Atlantic Wall. They were used to target English ships and could fire as far as the Kent coastline.

The Royal Navy had similar guns on the South East coast of England.

By the time Mr Stoddard arrived in France, the gun emplacements had been extensively mined and bombed from the air.

In one, emplacement he remembers seeing the remains of a man with a razor in his hand, bombed while he was shaving, and the bodies of the dead buried in shallow graves at others.

After the positions of the gun emplacements were plotted, they were demolished. When Mr Stoddard went back to France this October, only one was left and that had been been turned into the Batterie Todt museum.

Mr Stoddard was awarded three medals for his wartime service and will proudly wear them at a Remembrance Day service at Cradley Church on Sunday (November 14).