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My first impression of the beginnings of D-Day was that there was simply no joy in crossing the Channel in a flat-bottomed boat! We had hung a bucket on the back of our tank, and it was one continuous stagger to the bucket to be sick and then back. Quite frankly, it wouldn't have bothered me at that stage if the thing had sunk.

Sherman tank crew

My brother Pete and I were members of the same Sherman tank crew. Pete was the co-driver and I was the gunner. I had nicknamed our tank ‘Icanhopit’, and by the end of the war we were in ‘Icanhopit 4’.

The Sherman was one of the swimming tanks, known as DD tanks, because they were duplex drive vehicles. They floated by means of a collapsible canvas screen fitted to the hull of the 32-tonne tank and raised or lowered by means of compressed air in bottles. Once the screen was raised the tank was driven by two propellers from the main engine and steered by rudder and a very long tiller. Actually they were very seaworthy, and survived in all but the highest seas.

Preparations

We had undergone weeks of practice at the submarine station in Gosport, sitting in an improvised tank turret in a 20ft-deep concrete bath and having 2,000 gallons of water poured in, which was a strain on the nervous system to say the least!

Arrival

As we travelled across the Channel, there began a most terrific bombardment off the French coast. Standing on our tank cupola, we could see a vast Armada of ships: battleships blazing off their big guns; rocket projectile ships launching hundreds of rockets; and the RAF bombing the landing area. We had all seen photos of the area at Ouistreham, where we were to land, and about 5,000 yards from the beach we heard the order 'floater' - we knew we were off.

The landing craft stopped, and we moved down the ramp and floated into the sea. The officer steered us to shore. We were all so low in the sea we looked more like rowing boats, but that was part of the surprise plan. It was 6.30 hours. H-hour was 7.25 - we were to land at H 7.5 minutes. The bombardment went on and it was about this time that I stopped being a boy and became a man, because the landing craft carrying the infantry troops and commandos began to overtake us and some of them simply went over the tops of the tanks.

Late arrival

I looked for the escape apparatus to surface; some did, but not many. We were about seven and a half minutes late arriving on the beach, but as soon as we dropped the floater screen, we were swamped by the incoming high tide, which flooded the engine compartment. There was nothing left to do but evacuate - but first we fired our guns as long as we could, and Pete gathered together all his various tins of cigarettes!

Our troop sergeant, who had safely landed his tank, reversed to us and took us on board, and then, amid all the shooting and mayhem, he calmly dropped us off by the sea wall. Thirty-three out of 40 launched tanks made it onto the beach but some were swamped like us. Enough were left to make a real contribution to the battle.

Stonked

We all moved inland, but later that night as we waited in an orchard in Hermanville we were duly 'stonked' - that is, we came under mortar attack. We had dug trenches under our tanks so we felt quite safe, but from that day on we always slept in our tanks.

Our first day of war was over, a day for which we had trained as a crew for two years, and we were ably led. It never crossed my mind that we could lose the war, we were too young to think otherwise.

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