War veteran Don Higgins owes his sight to a clinic in the German town he helped capture more than 50 years ago.

Mr Higgins, 77, is one of the first fed-up patients to lead a new British invasion of Germany, dodging Britain's lengthy NHS waiting lists.

He thought he would never again see the streets of Uelzen, in northern Germany, after helping to capture the town in a bloody battle weeks before the end of the Second World War.

But 56 years on his former foes came to his rescue, offering him surgery he could not get on the NHS in Crawley.

Retired aircraft fitter Mr Higgins lives with wife Anneliese just 500 yards from the town's hospital.

When he began to go blind from cataracts earlier this year he was told he would have to wait at least 12 months for treatment or pay £6,000 to go private.

Doctors at the hospital in the German town offered him the same treatment at a third of the cost with a waiting time of just three days.

He said: "This just goes to show what a state our NHS is in. I never, ever thought I would return to Uelzen under these circumstances.

"We are being conned in this country. In my local NHS hospital I had to wait for an hour in a crowded corridor just to see a doctor.

"In Germany I felt like I was in a hotel. It's ironic that after all these years I have to go back to Uelzen just to be treated like a human being."

Mr Higgins lied about his age to join the Army in 1942 and rose to the rank of lance-corporal, taking part in the D-Day landings.

He was serving with the 44 Brigade Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the 15th Scottish division when he rolled into Uelzen on his 21st birthday under heavy artillery fire.

He made his return trip on March 10 this year.

In five days both cataracts had been removed and he was able to see without glasses for the first time in 30 years.

Mr Higgins, who was today setting off to Hamburg for a friend's birthday party, said the operation had given him a new lease of life.

A total of 1,037,100 Britons are stuck on waiting lists and many are beginning to look overseas for treatment.

A spokeswoman for the Surrey and Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust said: "We regret that Mr Larkin had a long wait for his cataract operation which is distressing for any patient.

"The Surrey and Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust is working very hard to reduce this.

"The trust is almost at its goal of reducing the wait for cataract operations down to six months and this has been achieved through a combination of initiatives."