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Sad news about the passing of ex sniper Harry Furness
Last night I received an email from Harry's daughter announcing the passing of her father on 1st March. Harry was a couple of weeks away from his 97th Birthday. I had known him for over 30 years. He was probably the most successful British sniper of WW2 and undoubtedly the last surviving British sniper who landed on D-Day. Well known in the British sniping community he continued to offer advice to serving snipers for many years after the war. Having shot a very senior German officer in the Normandy campaign he was bounced around a field from near misses from mortar and artillery rounds fired by very annoyed Germans. He crawled back to his unit with a head wound and concussion. He was told that his left optic nerve was damaged and that therefore he was blind in the left eye. Harry, being right handed, shrugged off this minor inconvenience and went back to the line and served for the rest of the war in that incredibly dangerous environment of sniping - a true measure of the man and his sense of duty. I contributed some of his stories to Steve Houghton for his The British Sniper book. It was a book that I had intended to write but when I became aware that Steve was writing one I decided to help him with some of the first hand accounts that I had collected over the previous 27 years. The one condition was that Harry should receive a copy of the book. I was proud and honoured to hand deliver it to Harry soon after its publication. RIP Harry.
