SCARED to death. That’s how Don Grant remembers feeling on D-Day. Then 22, Don was with the Royal Artillery, travelling to Sword Beach near Le Havre on a landing craft.

He was posted to the 185 British 3rd Division from Ireland to train for D-Day at the beginning of 1943 and then went to Ross Island in Scotland to train out of Invergordon.

“We stayed in cramped quarters in Portsmouth for a few days,” recalls Don, of Jacqueline Road, Parkstone. “Then we went aboard the landing craft and set sail. We got over there just after 9am. We came to a nice sandy beach, just like down at Sandbanks. But there was wire everywhere and scaffolding, just like we had over here.

“Holes had been bashed in it by our forerunners, so we bashed in through and went up a side road towards a farmhouse.”

Don, now 87, remembers being shot at by a sniper from a roof on the seafront, and again by someone in the same building, before turning around and re-routing.

“We ended up in nearby woods. We were there for six weeks. There was a bit of fighting, everybody was threatening everybody else. I was wounded in the left hand by a bit of shrapnel, so I got sent home. That was some time in July.”

Don left the army in 1947 and spent most of his working life as a bricklayer. But he revisited Sword Beach for the first time two years ago.

“It took me a long time to make up my mind to go,” he said. “When I came over the hill I didn’t recognise the place. It takes you back, it’s just memories. All you remember is the best bits. Some parts were terrible, but we did our best.

“The thing is, you’re scared to death. There’s no two ways about it. You look around you seeing small landing pontoons from the bigger ships and they would get hit by something-or-other.

“After the first few days, it was taken for granted. You just looked round and they were gone. When you look back it was a shocking state to get into.”