I was scared.But if you join the forces you're trained to fight and to kill

D-DAY HERO, 100 LANDED IN FRANCE THE DAY BEFORE SEABORNE INVASION

- ELEANOR BARLOW

AS Allied troops were making their way over the Channel for the D-Day landings, Corporal Peter Belcher and his battalion were already in place in Normandy, waiting.

Mr Belcher, now 100, and his colleagues from the Airborne Regiment, 4th Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry were flown in on gliders to capture vital bridges ahead of the seaborne invasion.

Setting off at about 8pm on June 5 1944 from RAF Harwell in Berkshire, he and five of his colleagues sat in the back of the glider, with a six-pounder anti-tank gun, as it circled above England before landing in Normandy at about midnight.

Now living at Broughton House veterans' care home in Salford, Mr Belcher said: "I was scared. It goes very quiet. You hear the drone of the plane all the way, you see, and then suddenly it goes quiet. You can hear a pin drop."