A GRIM task awaited Tony Gibbins as the landing craft headed for Gold Beach on D-Day.

Tony had volunteered for the Royal Marines just two years before. Now he was stoker aboard an LCVP, which meant he had to make sure the engine was kept in good order.

"When we got over there we were told to go right to the beach and carry out whatever orders they gave us," said Tony, who lives at Bridge, near Canterbury.

"As we approached the beach we could see the red flags indicating where the mines had been cleared and it was safe to land. The beach master waved us in and we dropped the door down.

"Our first job was to load body bags of soldiers killed in fighting earlier in the day. We laid them in the bottom of the landing craft, possibly up to 50 at a time.

"It gave you a strange feeling to be lifting these dead soldiers who just a few hours before had gone ashore to fight for their country."

Tony and his crew ferried the fallen soldiers to a waiting ship two miles offshore. From there they were carried back to England for burial.

The crew continued to transport their grim cargoes for most of the first day. At night they slept aboard one of the anchored ships.

He recalls HMS Ramillies seven miles off the coast opening up with her massive guns. "They were trying to take out a gun emplacement that was causing a bit of a nuisance," he said.

"Then they brought in a rocket ship which fired a whole battery of missiles with a big ‘whooshing' sound. I've never seen anything like it."

Throughout his service off the Normandy coast, Tony and his crew provided transport from ship to ship and from ship to shore, for anything that needed to be carried. This ranged from a pallet load of bread baked aboard HMS Ramillies for the troops on land, to senior officers gathering aboard one of the ships for important talks.

All around the Mulberry Harbour began to take shape as they worked. "It was amazing to see these massive caissons manoeuvred into place, and the roadways starting to carry trucks and ambulances to and from the shore," he said.

Once the harbour was in place, the landing craft ferries were no longer needed. They returned to England to help guard German prisoners of war.

Tony was sent to Singapore where - because he was a trained driver - he was given a job of chauffeur to senior officers under Louis Mountbatten, who as supreme allied commander, South East Asia Command, accepted the Japanese surrender in Singapore.  

On May 8 1946 he returned to England, to start a new career in the building trade.