AS THE three dinghies sped towards Normandy's dark shoreline in the small hours of June 6 1944, George Cunningham's only thought was to get the job done.

The day before, George had been really scared when he was twice forced to climb the mast of HMS Locust in rough seas to retrieve a lanyard. "I never was a good sailor," he said.

Just 19 years of age, he had joined a party of 18 Royal Marines on a combined operation to knock out a gun emplacement above Sword beach in the crucial hours before the main D-Day assault.

George was a Royal Navy signaller. His job would be to communicate the team's success, or otherwise, back to HMS Locust, using an Aldis lamp.

"We landed at about 3am," he said. "I had a revolver and a Sten gun as well as the lamp. These Marines were tough. I was just ‘the boy'.

"We had to go up this low cliff. One of the Marines went up first scrambling like a monkey. Next thing we knew ropes came down.

"There was a sentry on this cliff. One of the Marines done him. His name was Razor. I always believed this was because he preferred to use a cutthroat razor rather than a knife."

While some of the Marines placed explosives next to the gun - George believes it was an 88 mm - others popped hand grenades through the windows of a nearby hut where the gun crew was sleeping.

They also put a number of machine guns on the site out of action.

"I had been told that if anyone came out of the hut I was to shoot them," said George. "One guy did come out.

"This lad was only about 16. I didn't have to shoot, we could have taken him prisoner. But you're in a different state of mind at times like that.

"I shot him and it's something that has haunted me to this day."

It was gone 4am when George and the Marines regained their dinghies and set about finding HMS Locust.

Some time later there was a deafening roar as the big guns on battleships and cruisers out as sea opened up on enemy positions.

Locust, which was built for river work in China, and which had played an important role in the evacuation of Dunkirk, now rescued survivors from a Norwegian destroyer that had been sunk. She also picked up the crew of a Wellington bomber shot down by "friendly" fire.

"Troops started going ashore from landing craft," said George. "We were less than 100 yards off the beach and could see everything.

"I remember one of our signallers who had been a top class pianist. Everyone stopped when he played in the NAAFI. He was with one of the beach masters and I saw him step on a mine. He's buried over there somewhere."

Throughout the day HMS Locust concentrated machine gun fire on hotels and other buildings above the beach, where enemy machine gunners were firing on British and Canadian  troops struggling to get ashore.

"One thing I feel good about," said George, "is that our lads weren't getting killed by the guns we had knocked out earlier."

Once the beach was secure and the battle moved inland, George was posted to an old French cruiser, set up to guard the flanks of the Mulberry Harbour. A shell blast sent him flying, injuring both knees and gashing his head. Within a few days he was in hospital back in England. 

Once recovered, he was given a desk job in Whitehall, before being assigned once again to combined operations. By this time the War had moved on to Holland and into Germany.