80 years since D-Day: Bodies on the beach would haunt veterans forever

Getting ashore was seldom as easy as it had been on rehearsal exercises.

Ray Whittingham of Codsall, a 20-year-old anti-tank gunner, was detailed to help push out a roll of reinforced steel netting from his landing craft to help vehicles drive ashore. Clad in waterproof anti-gas trousers to keep dry, he and his colleagues stepped into chest-high water and their trousers promptly filled with sea water:

"This, together with the inflatable lifebelts that were being worn must have made us appear more like Michelin men than invaders."

Despite their difficulties, they unrolled the matting and the carriers and guns got safely ashore.

Stan Cartwright of Cradley Heath was crewman on a landing craft heading for Sword beach. He was 19.

"As the tide went out, our craft sat on top of an anti-invasion mine, blowing a great hole in our starboard side."

There was nothing for it but to scramble ashore, dig a fox-hole and hope for the best as German warplanes strafed the beach.

"My thought at the time was, if I have to die it's not going to be in a hole. So back we went aboard our landing craft. I can still see the bodies on the beach and, later in the day, the planes releasing the gliders, the paratroops descending from the planes and some not opening, and us looking on helplessly."

Sam Tuft of Brownhills waded ashore in the second wave as a private in the Queen's Royal Regiment on Gold Beach:

"The water was neck-deep. Your main concern was to keep your rifle dry. Things were chaotic, with artillery fire and sniping from hidden vantage points, making it difficult to keep track of units.

One of my first jobs after landing was to bury a fellow soldier, who had been badly blown-up, in a field.

"The worst thing of all was talking and joking with your mates and then suddenly finding they weren't there."