Second World War veteran and expert mine clearance diver John Payne dies aged 98

A veteran of the Second World War, who helped pave the way for the Allied advance to victory, has died at the age of 98.

John Payne, from Oxfordshire, is thought to have been the last surviving member of what became known as P Parties – specialist teams of mine and bomb disposal experts who cleared Europe's ports of explosives.

He volunteered for the Navy in 1943 at the age of 18 at Portsmouth barracks, because he was determined "to do something active".

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After training, Mr Payne was assigned to the American sector of the invasion front in Normandy and arrived in northern France about a fortnight after D-Day. His unit was sent to Cherbourg, the first major port taken by the Allies.

The men frequently carried out two dives a day and were so exhausted by the experience and lack of sustenance – they normally lived on sandwiches – that they could collapse through fatigue.

Mr Payne and his comrades helped open the port to maritime traffic and, during the invasion, the Allies urgently needed the port to resupply their forces.

Once the Allies crossed the Rhine in March 1945, German resistance in the West collapsed and Mr Payne's unit soon found itself in the city of Bremen – "the most mines of all the ports and our biggest haul".

At the war's end, Mr Payne volunteered for Far East service, continuing to do there what he had done in northwest Europe, but the clearance team was not needed there, so instead he left the Navy in 1946.

"They did offer me that I could stay in, but I couldn't. I was too damn tired," he recalled more than half a century later.

"They were no real options to dive outside even though I thought I might like to dive again.

"I enjoyed my diving, although I had a lot of responsibility.

"It seems an odd thing to say but it was a great time and great lads and thinking back I miss them dearly. They were a good crowd," he added.

When he left the Navy, Mr Payne returned to Lancing and became a postman after a brief spell working on the railways. He also volunteered as a Sea Cadets instructor. He received the Naval General Service medal with the 'Bomb & Mine Clearance 1945-53' clasp.

Mr Payne died at a nursing home for veterans in Worthing after a short illness.