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This is a transcript of a broadcast made on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Gwent on 6 June 1984. My late husband, Mr. Ray Gibbs and Dr John Herbert described their experiences of D-Day. I have spoken to Dr. John Herbert recently and he feels that it is important that others should hear these war time memories

Dr. John Herbert's account:

I was in the First Northants Yeomanry but initially I was trained as a Royal Army Corp. and when I finally passed out as a qualified gunner operator, I was drafted to the First Northants Yeomanry. There we were on Sherman tanks - these could travel at about 30 miles an hour. They were heavily armoured but had rather a small gun in terms of the 75mm cannon which, of course, is a great handicap when it came to fighting the Germans in Normandy. It was my job, as a gunner, at that time, to service and to fire and to look after the guns - but as a gunner, I was down in the middle of the tank and it was my job to look out of a visor which was about seven inches across and three inches down and I had my view of the war from there.

There was months and months of utter boredom just driving around the country, to me aimlessly, in the middle of a tank, not knowing where I was going, not knowing what I was doing, knowing nothing about tactics or start lines or just stopping and starting and stopping and starting. It was utterly boring and frustrating. And that's how I prepared for D-Day, I suppose.

There was an air of expectancy in the country in May and June. I was up at Catterick when we moved south and we had to waterproof our tanks. We ended up in a wood. I understood that this was because we needed to camouflage from any German recognisance planes which came over. It absolutely poured with rain - poured terrible - and, of course, this was the day of June 5th. The original day of the invasion. That incredible decision that General Eisenhower had to make. He postponed it until to June 6th and then there was a break in the weather and off everyone went again. I remember going down the 'hards', as we called them, which were special concrete gradients and up into the bowels of a tank landing craft.

I found myself up on top and it was blowing, it was raining, and it was miserable and I was far from home and I was frightened to death. I remember that I thought I'd try out these emergency rations. I shouldn't have done that but I did - because I had never seen this particular tin of soup we were issued with. It had a wick inside it and you lit the wick and it warmed the soup. You opened the can and you drank the hot soup. I remember getting out of the wind and getting out of the sight of anybody, like the Sergeant Major or anybody like that, opening this up and taking a drink of what was very, very pleasant soup - but if a real emergency had happened I would have been a tin of soup short!

It was very misty. Then the signal came over the loud speaker on the ship that we were to get into our vehicles. There was plenty of noise with the engines roaring, the smell diesel and everyone wondering what would happen when the doors of the ship opened My heart was pumping quite hard - I was really scared - really afraid. I was only 21. Really afraid - I can remember that kind of feeling very vividly.

I must have been in that tank for quite half an hour and I remember seeing daylight as the doors opened and then a tremendous thud - right towards the ship - I guessed that we had run aground When I came to drive out, we drove out onto dry sand. I could see that there were white tapes on each side of track up the beach and I could see that there were a lots of 'hedgehogs' in the form of steel girders some of them still with mines on the top on each side of this track. Keeping in beween the white tapes meant that the mines would be taken up by the assault engineers. I can remember very clearly going up between sand dunes and being waived on frantically by men in khaki. I expected to be blown up any minute. You couldn't hear anything because of the roar of the tank engines was too much you couldn't hear anything. Now and again I could see that the tank commander was dropping his head because he had his head out, silly man - but all tank commanders did and I was very glad I wasn't one because I learnt the phrase 'keep your head down!'

Within a yard there was a dead British soldier - without arms and without legs - an awful sight - already bloated - a sight I got to recognise in the next few days. The least we could do was to identify him so I felt in his breast pocket of his battledress
And pulled out his pay book and there was a photograph of his wife and two kids - one about five the other about three and a dark haired good looking woman about 30 I should think- it was quite horrifying The least we could do for that man was to put his rifle upside down, dig it into the earth and put his tin hat on. This was standard practice so that the people coming behind us could bury him. Within two yards was a German without legs - he was dead too. It was the first German I saw - covered in white dust. This was awful. Again, I felt in his breast pocket of his bluish grey uniform and found a book, a diary with 'Konto' on the front of it. Worse than that, out of his pocket came a little prayer book, a thin thing about three inches by inch and a half with German prayers in it. I suddenly realised that this chap was a Christian like myself - it was reality… It was reality and I was 21…. Although we killed many people after that and although I saw hundreds and hundreds of dead people - I think these two things, these two bodies, scarred my memory.

I think the first command I got was 'traverse right' when I turned the turret of the tank and I could see about fifty yards away, five or six Germans - I just pressed the button of the machine gun and they vanished - I expect three or four of them were killed. There were a lot of Infantry men about and they clung to the shelter of the tank very often but they were very, very glad they were on their own feet and not in one of these big tanks which were such a marvellous target - and I was glad I was inside the tank and not on my feet! I soon realised that if you wandered very far from your tank, you were into mines and minefields and the Germans had planted millions of shoe mines which, if you trod on them, would blow your feet off - blow your legs off - that kind of apprehension remained with me long after I returned from the war to 'civy street' For many months I found it very hard to walk on a grass verge without that scary feeling.

Of course, we knew the call signs of the various tanks and so we knew when they had been hit or when people had been killed. One thinks of these men who were in their early twenties.- When you think of them they are still young men.

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