A Bradford veteran is among more than 570 former servicemen, widows, spouses and carers to receive lottery grants to visit places where they saw action.

More than £323,000 has been paid out, including grants totalling £15,000 to 11 Yorkshire and Humberside veterans, in the latest round of Heroes Return grants.

Terry Harney, 87, of Clayton, decided to revisit the Sharm el Sheikh area of Egypt as his wartime experience took in campaigns in North Africa. He went with his son Peter, who is his carer.

Mr Harney joined the Territorial Army in 1939, aged 17.

He was transferred to the 70th Field Regiment and sent to Portsmouth for anti-aircraft duties. In 1942 he was posted to North Africa and later served in Italy. Mr Harney’s war experience in Italy included his time with the 25th Indian Brigade.

“It was January 1, 1944, and our guns were trained on one of three hills occupied by the Germans,” he said. “The guns had been specially calibrated to blast the words Happy New Year in the side of the hill. Whether the Germans acknowledged this or not we will never know.”

And, 91 years after the end of the First World War, an online database of two million British soldiers who fought in it is now available.

There are 32 million documents that can be called up on Ancestry.co.uk. The records of more than 20,000 Bradford soldiers are now available.

They include nine Bradford City players killed in the war, such as Robert Torrance and Jimmy Speirs, two members of City’s 1911 FA Cup winning side, and Bradford Park Avenue player Donald Simpson Bell.

He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for destroying a German machine gun post on the Somme in 1916. He was killed in action a few days later.