Episode 3 D-Day 70

Hello and welcome to D-Day 70 - The Heroes Remember.

All this week we're looking ahead to the 70th anniversary

of the Normandy landings. Today, I'm at Portsmouth Naval Base,

home to two thirds of the Royal Navy's fleet.

In the days before D-Day, this harbour and the Solent beyond,

all the way up to the Isle of Wight in the distance,

would have been packed with ships of all shapes and sizes,

crammed with men waiting to make the crossing to France.

It's a journey hundreds of the remaining veterans

will make again this week to keep the memory of D-Day alive.

We should never forget D-Day,

because it was a major attempt to bring peace to the world.

We were facing... with a tremendous power

which had conquered the whole of Europe.

First man I shot was...

He was only a lad, about the same age as me.

I didn't like it.

Well, we should never forget D-Day because all our soldiers

went to war, and many of them didn't come back.

The remaining D-Day veterans are now in their late 80s and 90s.

For many of those who are returning to Normandy this week,

it will be their last visit. Today, one veteran

describes the mayhem that greeted him

as he landed in France 70 years ago.

We had to jump into about four foot of water and wade ashore,

and get shot at, machine-gunned, and shells bursting around us.

James Holland discovers how the troops were trained for D-Day.

That's all you had - just two.

-Just two two-pounder shots?

-Yes. That was it.

Just showed you what happened with a gun inside the tank

when it went off, doesn't it?

We hear from a veteran's widow who continues to visit Normandy.

Since he passed away, I have gone for him.

I have gone back to pay his respects to his friends that he left behind.

And Dan Snow talks to Royal Marines about the challenges

faced by the men in the landing craft.

As the troops were preparing for action in France,

plans were being put into place here to cope with the inevitable

casualties that were going to be coming back from Normandy.

For Judy Stokes, a young volunteer for the Red Cross,

it was a baptism of fire.

As war started, Judy was keen to play her part,

but too young to take on an active role.

Her older sister worked for the Red Cross

and Judy took every opportunity to tag along.

I took a tremendous interest in what was going on and I thought,

"Right, I'm going to join this as soon as I can and be one of them."

Living in Fareham on the south coast of England, it was clear

that something big was going on.

We had so many troops,

so many vehicles, and of course they all had to be hidden.

So every road that had over-hanging trees

had tanks or something similar underneath.

We had reached the point of build-up where it was impossible to

squeeze in another tank or another man anywhere out of sight.

As time went on, middle of the night,

there was a sound of voices, engines,

and then of course we heard the movement.

The next morning, the road was empty.

ARTILLERY FIRE

It was... It was really...

Well, it was history.

We didn't realise we were living history, it's only now.

-NEWSCASTER:

-'D-Day has come.'

That particular day, of course, I had to go to work as usual.

We were sat at the bench and the most wonderful news -

we had landed, it was wonderful.

I had been training all this time.

The Red Cross knew that I was available, very willing,

but I had to be 19, and by that time I was.

So that wonderful day, I was straight up the office.

Three days later, uniform and gone.

And that was when I went to Waterside Auxiliary Hospital.

Lovely, lovely home near Liphook.

We had men who, as soon as they came back from France,

they went to local hospitals, possibly for operations,

possibly for burns treatments.

And then as quickly as possible they were consigned to

a convalescent home to vacate the beds in the hospital

for the next hospital ship coming in.

I never knew where they had come from.

I never knew what they had done, they didn't choose to tell me.

Certainly, in the early days of the landings,

the loss of life and injuries was terrific.

As one man left, another was lined up to come in.

We never had an empty bed.

To start off with, of course, they'd be bed patients, and then

as they improved they would be up and about in their hospital blues.

As they started to get better, of course, they had to be occupied.

We had lovely gardens - there was a tennis court for any of the men

who were well enough to play.

We sometimes used to play tennis with them,

just to make sure they didn't overdo it. Well, that was our story, anyway.

Dances were held, parties were held.

Yes, it was made as peaceful and as comfortable

and as nice as possible because I think by that time we had

begun to realise this might be the last time these men were in England.

If they got sent back to France, would they come back again?

As the D-Day campaign progressed, so did Judy's nursing career.

She was posted to Park Prewett Hospital in Basingstoke

to work under the renowned plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies.

There she came face to face with

some of the most extreme wartime injuries.

We had to go through what we politely called The Chamber of Horrors.

These were photographs of patients

with all the worst possible injuries.

Some had very severe burns,

some had very severe gunshot wounds.

And our reaction was watched.

And some girls recoiled and couldn't take it,

so of course they were otherwise assigned.

And you thought, these poor men, however did they bear it?

Because this, of course, was them for life.

By this time, it was obvious they would be going back

to the Front at all, they were too badly damaged.

There was one particular man I remember - Geordie Ray.

Terrible man. SHE CHUCKLES

He wasn't really. He was a lovely man.

He was a tank man, and he had lost both hands.

His party trick was to shake hands with you -

of course, artificial hands - and he would slip one

and you would be left holding it and he would be laughing his head off.

I mean, I think that really, really takes courage.

He married one of the sisters.

It was a privilege to help these men.

We were so young at the time, and because of the war

we were pitchforked into a complete...

I mean, you were at school one minute

and you're nursing dying men the next.

Only war would do that to you.

So many of the people who took part in D-Day

were just teenagers at the time.

I'm joined here by four cadets - Nancey and Elizabeth,

who are based here in Portsmouth, Sea Cadets,

and James and Jack, who are based in Liverpool, Air Cadets.

What does it mean, Jack, when you think of D-Day?

What does it mean to you?

It means quite a lot to me

because we had soldiers fighting for our country,

for our freedom, which obviously means a lot to everyone.

When you think about it now - and it's 70 years ago this week -

-it is extraordinary what they did, isn't it?

-It is.

I don't know how they actually done it - especially at that time.

I mean, they didn't have much technology at the time,

and for what they've done - and done it so well - it's amazing, really.

How significant is it for you?

It is quite significant, as Jack said.

If they weren't there to fight for us, we might not be here now.

And you've met a D-Day veteran, haven't you?

Yeah, I met one a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me

that his best mate was a bagpiper, and when he landed on D-Day,

he thought he'd been shot but it was his bagpipe!

So he fixed his bagpipe and bagpiped all the way up to the front line.

And every year since then he's gone back and done the same route.

And Nancey, you have taken part in a D-Day anniversary before,

haven't you?

Yes, that was last year on 6th June.

Me and a lot of veterans paraded down on Southsea Common

and I carried the standard and marked my respect.

And, Elizabeth, you'll be doing something again this week -

explain what it will be.

We're doing parades down Southsea Common to commemorate D-Day

and then there are services held in the cathedral in Portsmouth.

And you two are going over to Normandy itself, aren't you?

-We are, yeah.

-What will you be doing?

We'll be visiting the war graves while we're there, we'll be going

to some museums, and we'll also be doing parades for D-Day.

-It's your first time, isn't it?

-For both of us, yeah.

And what are your thoughts in the run-up to going?

I'm excited to go. I can't wait to see what's going on over there.

Excited, but nervous at the same time.

-Why?

-Meeting all the veterans

and listening to what they've got to tell us,

what they went through, is something you've got to respect, isn't it?

The success of D-Day lay partly in

the meticulous planning that had gone into every aspect of it.

But now the men who were going to land on the Normandy beaches

had to be prepared.

James Holland takes a look at the training and rehearsals needed

to ready the troops for the largest seaborne invasion ever staged.

The plan to invade Europe was ambitious,

and with over 150,000 men plus aircraft and ships involved,

it mean a lot of preparation and training was needed to pull it off.

None of the Allied planners

were in any doubt about the enormous challenges of a seaborne invasion,

one of the most complex and difficult military operations imaginable.

Key to its chances of success

was the development of new technology and equipment.

It was now time to put those developments into action.

Right across the south coast of England, military camps

began to spring up as troops were trained in the art of beach landings

and amphibious attack.

Eldon Roberts spent months training on various beaches in the area.

We trained for D-Day all the time,

that's what it was all about.

We were the assault division.

Often we would go out at night on a boat and anchor out and come in

and hit the beach in the morning, as was going to happen in the invasion.

We would hit the beach and come up over the cliffs

and go round firing blanks, scaring the schoolkids and that

on their way to school and all that stuff.

It was a huge undertaking.

And thousands of Allied troops moving into the area to train

inevitably meant some civilians had to move out.

Just before Christmas 1943,

the residents here in Tyneham on the Dorset coast received a letter

from the War Office telling them to leave - and in just four weeks.

Their village was about to become a firing range.

All part of the pre-invasion training plans.

The villagers were never allowed back.

-Hello, John.

-Hi.

-How are you? Nice to see you.

-Very well, thank you.

'John Bower was part of a tank battalion

'who trained in the area, ready for the D-Day landings.'

Used to drive the tanks about

and go out on manoeuvres,

do wireless operating. And we used to occasionally go to

a range for firing.

Am I right in saying you used to practise firing out to sea?

Two shots is all you had, just two.

-Just two, two-pounder shots?

-Yes.

That was it, just showed you what happened with

a gun inside the tank when it went off, didn't it?

So when did you start saying, we are training now for an invasion?

Well, I suppose we were training for it all the time,

but you didn't think about that, really.

But when I went to Aldershot,

where we went to waterproof the tank,

then you really thought about it.

And you also had a pond there that you drove the tank into to see

if everything was all right, that you had waterproofed it all right.

And then you came back out again and we also filled it up with ammunition

and everything ready to go over.

In all your training, did you ever practice taking

-a tank on to a landing craft?

-No, no, you went straight down

and got on to the boat at Portsmouth and you went over.

And that was it, first time?

First time, that's absolutely right, first time.

By 1944, the plan to invade Europe was gathering momentum.

It was decided that Allied forces would land on a 50-mile stretch

of the Normandy coast and then break through the Germans' many defences.

The British and Canadians would storm three beaches in the east

and the Americans were to seize the west.

The first training exercise for the landings on Utah Beach

took place at Slapton Sands in Devon.

The operation went disastrously wrong

and resulted in more than 700 casualties.

A month later, in May 1944, a trial run for the landings on

Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches - codenamed Operation Fabius -

took place all along the south coast, including here on Hayling Island.

Both Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower,

the supreme Allied commander, came here to this former hotel

to watch those crucial training exercises.

Both men were all too aware of the enormous risks

of attempting a cross-Channel invasion,

and you can't help wondering what must have been

going through their minds that day as they watched the training exercises

on the beaches just over there.

But perhaps seeing the array of new landing craft,

specially designed equipment, and the professionalism of the men,

perhaps that gave them just a little bit of confidence for what lay ahead.

Royal Marine James Baker was stationed on Hayling Island

at the time, training Canadian forces how to use landing craft.

It was a typical camp for soldiers, you know.

You were in these Nissen huts and they kept you together

because you were going to die together.

We were the best-trained troops. We were good, we were good.

We were using live ammunition.

It was a bit hairy,

but we were young and fearless...

and thought we were going to live forever.

And nobody...

..was going to take our country.

These dress rehearsals for the D-Day landings had gone well,

and the Allied troops were deemed ready for battle.

But despite all the training,

many of the troops didn't know what was coming their way.

At about 4.30 in the morning

they woke us up and said, "This is it, invasion."

That was the first time you knew about it?

It was the first thing we knew about it. No idea until then.

They said, go and draw live ammunition

and this is the real thing.

Up until then you thought it was another training exercise?

Yes, absolutely. We thought we were going to hit

the Isle of Wight or somewhere, you know?

'Eldon was in the first boat that landed on Juno Beach that day.'

Any feeling of nerves, fear at all?

No, you didn't think about it, you were so geared up for it.

We knew exactly what to do.

If we hadn't had that training, it would have been a disaster.

In the run-up to D-Day, no stone had been left unturned.

The preparations and logistical support were absolutely phenomenal,

but in the fighting to come, it was going to be

the men on the ground, and especially the infantry

and tank regiments, that were going to have to do the hard yards.

They were trained and ready,

but faced a very bitter and bloody battle ahead.

On Friday, the events of D-Day will be remembered at a series

of ceremonies in Normandy that will be attended by the Queen,

the Duke of Edinburgh and younger generations of the royal family.

Veterans will be commemorating their comrades' sacrifices

at a service at Bayeux Cemetery.

There will be an international event to which heads of state from

around the world have been invited, and the day will conclude with

the British march-past near what was known as Gold Beach on D-Day.

MILITARY BAND PLAYS

James and Jack, you're going to Normandy

for the first time this year. What will you be doing there?

We'll be doing some parades in Arromanches with the veterans,

flying our standards, going to some of the war graves -

the English ones, the Americans and the Germans,

we'll be visiting them.

And what are you most looking forward to?

Doing the parade with the veterans.

Just seeing...we respect them, we're going with them

just to say we've always got your back and we're always here for you.

We can't really pay them back, essentially, because what they did

they say was their job, and they don't feel like heroes.

But to everyone else, they are the heroes of today,

because like I said before, if they didn't fight for us,

we wouldn't be here right now,

we wouldn't be able to thank them, wouldn't be able to help them.

And you'll be looking forward to helping the veterans?

We're doing some parades, and they'll be in the parades with us.

We'll help them get around the parades...just to repay what

they've done for us, we'll help them out while they're over there.

And obviously all of us will enjoy doing that.

Well, many veterans will be returning to Normandy

with their wives, children or even grandchildren.

And for some of those families, keeping the memory of D-Day alive

continues long after the veterans are able to tell their stories.

Frances met Normandy veteran Bill Stone in 1963 when she was

in the Territorial Army and he was serving as a military policeman.

I was speeding in the camp and as a policeman he pulled me up.

And the next morning I was up before the colonel.

Sergeant Stone marched me in and the colonel said,

"Please, Sergeant, don't do it again."

And I came out.

And we met in the sergeant's mess afterward

and he offered to buy me a drink, which I declined.

And then after that,

meeting at the drill hall at least twice a week, and we got together.

And went from there, from strength to strength.

We married in 1966. On 18th June.

And Bill always referred to that as his "Waterloo day".

He was my special person. He was not only my husband,

he was my friend, or mate, as they used to say.

When he was on duty, he was very much on duty.

He was very much the policeman.

But off duty he was one of the boys.

He liked to drink, he liked to smoke,

and he liked to laugh, and he liked to travel.

One of the couple's regular trips was to Normandy,

where Bill landed on D-Day with the Seaforth Highlanders.

He was so proud to be a Seaforth Highlander.

We have a photo of him in his kilt before he went to Normandy.

And they landed on D-Day with the 51st Highlander Division

on Sword Beach.

They were in the landing craft,

which was flat-bottomed and bobbing up and down.

As it came into the beach, they let the front down,

and it wasn't on the beach.

So he landed in six foot of water

with 90lb on his back and a rifle, etc,

so it wasn't a good start.

They went up the beach, and he lost two friends.

It was chaos - shelling and bullets and death around them.

So he found that quite horrendous.

He said, "You landed as boys and you ended the day as men."

He often said that.

I think they were prepared to a certain degree

but not fully aware of what was going to happen - the carnage.

That was the thing that got to him.

Seeing some of the wounded, others were dead.

That, I think, was the thing that hit him most.

It was difficult at times, because he still had nightmares.

He would suddenly sit up in bed and go, "Keep down! Keep down!"

And, you know, words like this.

And there were days when yes, he was very, shall we say,

thoughtful - quiet.

And I learnt over the time to leave him.

Then if he wanted to talk, I would listen.

But there are times when these men want to be on their own.

When he went back to Normandy,

and he stood on Sword Beach for the first time, which was 1987,

very emotional. Very emotional.

He looked out to sea and he said, "There was nowhere for us to go.

"If we couldn't have got off the beach,

"there was nowhere for us to go."

And that was a very emotional moment for him.

Bill and I were together from 1966 until 8th November 2001.

And that's when he passed away.

A bit traumatic, obviously, for me,

but I gave him a very good send-off.

And since he passed away, I have gone for him.

I've gone back to pay his respects to his friends that he left behind.

I wear Bill's medals on my right-hand side

because he was proud of them, and I'm proud to wear them for him.

Every time he went back, we went on to Sword Beach

and he always put two crosses down - two poppy crosses.

And marked them with stones because two of his friends

didn't make it off the beach on that awful day.

And that's what I do now,

and that's what I've been doing since he's been gone.

When you look at Sword Beach, especially if the tide is out,

it is a shock to see.

And then you think, and if you can, you visualise the thousands of men

that were coming ashore there...

And I do get a bit of a cold shiver.

I do it for him, because I feel that I should.

And I know that if he's up there, or wherever he is,

I'm sure that he's approving of it.

This year's trip to the Normandy beaches

will be particularly poignant for Frances.

I shall probably stand there for the last time this year

and I'll probably have tears.

It will be sad, as the last time,

but that unfortunately comes with age. We can't do it any more.

It will be the end of an era.

Nancey and Elizabeth, when you think back to D-Day and the people

who took part, many of them were not that much older than you, were they?

I think it's quite extraordinary that people just a bit older than us

went out there and fought for our country.

To be honest, putting myself in their shoes,

I don't reckon I could have done that.

I can't relate to it,

because my life is so different to what theirs would have been.

And thinking about going over there and doing it is just unimaginable.

James and Jack - when you think about it, you're 17,

you're 16 - these men were, many of them, 18 years old.

Just a bit older than us.

That's quite frightening, to be honest. I couldn't be going

out to war at this age - I'd be too scared, to be honest with you.

So I can't even imagine what would be running through their minds at

the time - especially deploying onto the beaches, and things like that.

I mean, if me and James were to go out,

-we'd be worried, not only for ourselves but for each other.

-Yeah.

That must have been a frightening experience for them, really.

The veterans all talk about the camaraderie, the close bonds

they forged, which is something the two of you understand, isn't it?

BOTH: Yeah.

Even from the day we joined Cadets, James even got me into Air Cadets,

and that obviously has built a bond between us.

And because we've known each other that long -

we've known each other since primary school, really -

so if we were to go out to war like them, and obviously

because we've got that bond, it would be so much worse, really.

For them to develop a bond so much more quickly

and work as a team, as if they're brothers, is just fantastic.

Have you got any idea now how you think the anniversary

that you're about to go and take part in

will leave you feeling afterwards?

What do you think it will make you feel?

I think it's quite important because we're remembering

70 years ago and we want to keep that going on for the coming years.

And when us Cadets join the Navy or the forces

and we fight for our country,

we'd want people to remember us and mark their respect.

-Elizabeth?

-It's exactly as she said.

If I joined the forces, I would like things that I do to be remembered.

So it's just paying respect to those and what they've done -

the people who have laid down their lives

-so we could have what we have now.

-Thank you all very much.

All this week, Dan Snow has been finding out what D-Day means

to present-day servicemen and women.

Today he meets Royal Marines of 45 Commando,

whose regimental history goes back to D-Day, to find out

more about the men who landed on Normandy's heavily defended beaches.

As dawn broke on 6th June 1944, the stage was set

for the biggest and most ambitious

amphibious invasion in history - the D-Day landings.

Over two years of intelligence had been gathered,

the training had been completed,

and now, around 6,000 naval vessels - a vast armada -

was steaming towards the beaches of Normandy,

ready to invade what was enemy territory.

ARTILLERY FIRE

As the men came in by landing craft, they would not have known

whether they were going to survive that day.

The men, if they did make it ashore, risked being wiped out

by machine-gun fire or snipers that were based inland.

And as they crept up the beach,

they would have been moving past the dead and wounded.

Whether you lived or died seemed arbitrary - it was a matter of luck.

I've spent years reading about D-Day, I've met lots of veterans

who took part in the fighting on that fateful day.

Yet it's very hard for me to understand.

It's almost impossible to imagine

what those remarkable young men went through on D-Day.

More than 150,000 troops took part that day.

17,000 of those men were Royal Marines.

Here in Arbroath, home of 45 Commando, the toughness

and professionalism exhibited by that unit on D-Day

is still central to their training today.

Amphibious assault is one of the hardest things

you can do in the military, isn't it? What are the things you think about,

to play your part in that successfully?

Everyone thinks it's essentially

just a boat driving up to the shoreline

and everyone just running off.

There's much more to it than that.

You need to co-ordinate between yourself and the Navy to get there.

Co-ordinate with the actual landing craft so they know

what the beach is going to be like that they are coming up against.

Where the defensive positions are.

It's not a case of just being able to run up and then take a position,

it's a case of running up, planning.

We are Yankee Company, 45 Commando. Actions on attack - small arms fire.

'Making sure you know what's happening with the other troops.'

So you're aware of the whole picture,

rather than just a small piece of it, so you know how you fit in.

It is my intent to destroy enemy forces by attacking objective Gold

so that the southern flank can be secured

prior to amphibious landings on Red Beach.

Red Beach is located here.

It must be a nervous time when you're on those boats,

because that's when you can't do much to protect yourselves, can you?

Yeah, I guess you're quite exposed, and obviously thinking about stuff.

But at the end of the day, if you've done proper orders

and the lads feel well-prepared and they've done their proper training,

everyone should be good to go.

It's not hard for today's marines

to appreciate what the men went through in 1944.

It goes all the way back from D-Day. Landing, doing beach assaults.

Even to this day, we still crack it out now.

And that's what the Royal Marines is all about.

Knowing that in the past they've played such a massive part

in historical events like D-Day

and sort of just to imagine the things the lads had to go through,

especially our lads, 45 Commando and the role they played on D-Day,

it does mean a lot. It gives you a bit of pride in your job now.

It's unimaginable what they had to go through.

Obviously we've done beach assaults and similar training exercises

but I can't imagine what it would have been like

for those guys in real life in such a huge assault.

'Like their fellow marines in World War II, these guys still carry

'a lot of equipment, but the technology has advanced hugely

'in the last 70 years.'

-Talk me through this.

-This is the lightweight infantry periscope.

So you could be in cover and see the enemy and work out...?

It's used in the trenches.

That's a brilliant piece of kit that's descended from the stuff

they would've used way back in World War I, World War II.

This is just an adaptation of what they would've had.

This is ranges, bearing and elevation.

So that's a very advanced bit of kit - they wouldn't have had that.

This has come a long way from binoculars.

All three of these things here are for fighting at night.

Great bit of kit for night-time, last night we couldn't see,

whacked that on and could see everything in front of us.

This is holographic sight on a range drum

which produces a red dot on screen here, for the firer.

-That helps to improve accuracy?

-Improves accuracy, yeah.

They would have loved to have those 70 years ago, wouldn't they?

The Royal Marines motto is Per Mare, Per Terram -

By Sea, By Land.

And on D-Day, they were expected to fight across both.

These Royal Marines are practising a cliff assault.

There were certain places along that Normandy Coast

where they had to attack up cliffs.

What we're seeing here is a reminder that you guys aren't just

trained to fight up the beach

but to deal with obstacles beyond that as well, fighting inland.

We'd be expected to get to a beach and then cross an obstacle

if it was there, such as a cliff,

and continue on and take on the enemy.

When you think of what they achieved at D-Day,

does that fill you with awe?

When we think of D-Day,

I mean, it's hard to comprehend the scale of that assault.

I like to think if we were doing this for real,

we'd be trying to remain covert

and hopefully not come up against the enemy like the guys did on D-Day

which is...unbelievable, really.

The human cost of D-Day was high.

4,500 men lost their lives that day.

A huge sacrifice, but the figure was a lot lower

than many had feared.

The Normandy landings could have been a catastrophe.

But thanks to the professionalism of the men, the guts they showed,

and the meticulous planning that went into them,

D-Day was a resounding success.

Robert Barker joined up after his home city, Liverpool, was bombed.

He was one of 30,00 men who landed on Sword Beach on D-Day.

We expected people to get killed or injured.

They had shells behind, they had guns behind that,

machine guns at posts.

We knew what we were going to go through.

I mean, we were scared, but we had to do it.

My home was bombed, I lost my sister and her son,

and a five-year-old niece. My mother was wounded...

and that annoyed me.

So I wanted to...I was only 17 then

but when I was 18 I joined the army.

Two years later, as a 20-year-old private in a rifle regiment,

Robert found himself in a military camp

gearing up for the biggest amphibious invasion in history.

We weren't allowed out, barbed wired around us,

sentries and policemen all over the place. We weren't allowed to move.

Couldn't send a letter home. Couldn't do anything.

And we stayed that way for about a week or two.

So we got a surprise when we they put us on boats,

took us out of Portsmouth.

There were so many landing craft in the harbour,

all around the place, you know. We knew it was a big thing.

It didn't worry us really, it didn't worry me.

I knew we were going to come under fire and we might get hurt,

but there's nothing I could do about it.

We were given three 50-round bandoliers of ammunition,

two grenades, one smoke bomb, one mine.

They had boxes of ammo and we could help ourselves,

so we filled our pockets with loose ammo.

It wasn't light.

If you fell over, you wouldn't have a chance of getting up.

We were stuck in Portsmouth Harbour for about two or three days.

There was nothing we could do, we just lazed around on the boats.

And then one night we just moved out,

and we were under convoys and went across the Channel.

They were huge convoys.

We left on the night of the 5th and it took us

a couple of hours to cross the Channel, and we got there for dawn.

I was seasick.

And as we got closer to the shore, we passed the battleship.

It was called HMS Roberts, and she fired a broadside.

ARTILLERY FIRE

Bang! Hell of a banger.

Cured my sea sickness, I wasn't seasick.

I think I was too scared to be seasick.

We started to pass ships that were sinking, men in the water.

Some were alive, some were dead. We couldn't stop.

We weren't allowed to stop.

We got nearer to the shore then they were machine-gunning us.

We were standing behind the ramp, waiting to go out

and a shell comes over the top of the ramp, but didn't burst,

didn't explode, just came through the ramp and kept going.

We had to jump into about four foot of water and wade ashore.

Under constant fire, Robert needed a lot more than luck

to get across the heavily fortified Sword Beach.

We were in for it, we knew we were going to be having a rough time.

I'm getting shot at, machine-gunned and shells bursting around us.

He saw his opportunity and dived behind a tank,

using it as a shield to get him and his platoon up the beach.

We followed it up the beach and when we got to the top,

the tank was over the top,

we just lay down and waited for the platoon to catch up with us.

We managed to get up without losing a man.

Roberts's section of the 5th Battalion King's Regiment

had been given the job of securing the beach

for the arrival of further troops and supplies.

The Germans had fired at us

and we'd have to flop down then crawl forward,

fire back at them, then we'd charge them and kill or capture them.

We'd send the prisoners back. And we were doing that all day.

All we had was water bottles, boiled sweets and water.

And that was what we had all day, you know.

We were walking along the main road and we passed the hairdressers

and the door opened and a young lady just stuck her head out at me.

And we went to her and asked, "What's wrong?"

She spoke good English, she said, "Have you come to stay?"

We said, "Yes, this is the invasion, we're here to stay."

So she called her dad. He came out and said, "Come on," so we went in.

He shook hands with us,

and the girl gave us a cuddle and a kiss - glad to see you, you know.

And he brought a bottle of champagne, and he got glasses.

That's the first time we ever had a glass of champagne!

So that was good!

Towards the evening, we were called back onto the beach,

and we had to get the beach ready for any attack that come in,

so we couldn't sleep.

The day went so fast, you know. We couldn't realise what we'd done.

It was a job, yeah.

You had no feelings at all - only fear, you know.

It feels like it happened yesterday.

It's in your mind all the time. It's something you don't forget.

That's it from us for today.

Tomorrow, James Holland tells the story of a small team of men

with a special D-Day mission.

The mission between the two of them was to get across the Channel,

because there were three possible D-Days,

so obviously we had to go across to prepare for the first one.

We hear from two French veterans who joined the Allied forces

to liberate their country.

We came in straight after it was liberated,

and they started to speak English to us.

But we had 'France' on our shoulders. I said, "We're French!"

And Dan Snow looks at the impact of the weather

on the operation's planning.

The Germans were caught out,

not because they weren't any good at forecasting,

but because they thought we wouldn't possibly try and launch an invasion

based on that forecast. So we made the right decision.

Join me again tomorrow morning

when I'll be with D-Day veterans

at the Historic Dockyard here in Portsmouth

for our final part of D-Day 70 - The Heroes Remember.