IN FEBRUARY 1944, John Laming was transferred from the Royal Army Service Corps to an ambulance company based in Cornwall.

There, he learned first aid and underwent medical training. Mr Laming was to become a driver with the British support group known as the 2nd Army, tending to troops injured during the push into Normandy.

Now, aged 79 and living in Firtree Close, Canterbury, he says in the first months of 1944, he had no idea exactly when or where this training would be put to use.

"We were kept in complete ignorance about D-Day," he says. "We didn't know what was going on, and we didn't know what we were going to do. At some point, we were taken to a camp at St Neots, outside Cambridge, and were given French money and a little book about France.

"Then, all of a sudden, we were off to Tilbury, in Essex, and on to the Empire General a 10 or 11,000-tonne Canadian boat, a bit bigger than the liberty boats.

"We drove our ambulances on to a net, got out, and the net hoisted the vehicle onto the ship. It was the same to offload them onto the landing craft the other side.

"From Tilbury, we anchored off Southend and were there for two or three days. We heard on the boat public address system that the landings had started. That was the first time I'd heard of Normandy. We weren't so worldly wise then.

"On around June 8, we set off. I was with D Platoon, which was independent from the rest and the only ambulance platoon on board. We got to the Canadian Juno beach, but they weren't ready for us, because it was too crowded, so we moored about a mile from shore. HMS Belfast was firing over our heads and next to us were rocket launchers, which I hadn't seen before.

"It wasn't until June 10 that we got on the Tank Landing Craft to go to shore. You had to drive your waterproofed vehicle about 200 yards in two feet of water to a controlled area marked by bandages to signify it had been cleared of mines. There was sniping from houses on top of the beach.

It was our job to load up the wounded and take them back to the casualty clearing station near the coast where we'd come from.

"In the early days, they were taken to a duck a motorised boat and onto the hospital boat before any major tented hospitals or the Mulberry Harbours were constructed.

"Frankly, at this point, the wounded were a nuisance they held things up. You saw a few self-inflicted wounds, not often, but it happened. Soldiers would lose a thumb or get shot in the foot the night before a battle. That was a chargeable offence.

"Occasionally, at the casualty clearing stations, the senior non- commissioned officer would come out and tell me to wait an hour or so. That meant I would have to take corpses to the temporary burial ground. That's a shaker. All the while, you could hear the rumble, rumble, rumble of fighting. It was almost non stop, but you got used to it.

"After a while, very little shocked you. I don't like blood now, but one day, I had two British troops in the back of my wagon. They'd been in a scout car accident and had been badly burned. They had white lint all over their faces and they asked for a drink. I lifted my cup of water to the man's mouth, but there was no flesh there. I helped him, but I wanted to be sick. The other one was just as bad."

n D-Day had been a great triumph. By nightfall on June 6, five Allied divisions had established a firm foothold on the beaches. But this initial success deteriorated into grim and bloody fighting as the German Army put up a firm resistance in the towns, villages and countryside of Normandy.