We arrived at Juno, battleships were firing ...we were petrified

WHEN D-Day hero Albert Fenton was hauled out of camp and told he was going to see his commanding officer he thought his war was over.

- Giles Sheldrick

Albert, then 19 and serving with the Royal Army Service Corps, used to slip out of his Salisbury barracks to spend a few hours at home.

But returning to base one morning in the summer of 1944 he and his mates were met by fearsome Military Police and their heart missed a beat.

Now 98 and suffering from Alzheimer's, Albert said: "We were all worried as we were expecting to do a stretch for going Awol.

"The officer with a smile on his face told us to collect our kit and we were then trucked down to board on to a landing craft.

"We were on this for two days just off the Isle of Wight. Looking back, I would rather have been charged as I had never felt so sick in all my life." When the Bath native was called up at 18 in 1943 his mum said: "Don't worry, son, you will be home soon - you are not tall enough." But he was to play his part in a corps responsible for supplying frontline units with food, water, fuel and military equipment.

He said: "We sailed early on June 6, 1944, not knowing where we were going or what was lying ahead of us.

"We arrived at Juno Beach and had to stay on board until a road was laid for us as the sand had all been blown up.

"All the while waiting we could hear battleships firing the noise was so loud it almost burst our eardrums. I am sure I was not the only one who was petrified at what we were about to walk into.