AS a teenager Georgie Woods longed to join the Royal Navy, following in the footsteps of his older brother Wilfred.

Born in 1923, he spent his childhood with 500 other boys in a Barnardo's home, leaving school at 14 to tour the country with a concert party raising cash for the charity.

"I was one of those little daredevil lads," said Georgie, who swapped his Home Guard uniform to join the Services at 18.

The Second World War had been raging for two years when he started his training as a signalman at HMS Royal Arthur, at the former Butlin's holiday camp at Skegness.

Three years later on June 6, 1944, he took part in the invasion of Europe, when more than 4,000 ships crossed the Channel and thousands of American, British and Canadian troops risked their lives to open a Western Front in the war against Hitler's Germany.

Georgie was on duty for three long days non-stop, yet he described the experience simply as an "encore".

"I had already taken part in five invasions, although there was an extra tot of rum on offer for the first time on D-Day!

"My thoughts were 'here we go again' and when we were crossing from Southampton I had a good idea what was going to happen.

"Mountbatten told us in Algiers that if we were fully-trained troops then we knew the business.

"Everyone knew each other on our flat bottomed beauty and it was a lovely crew we were real mates. We had two officers and the skipper was a gentleman."

Georgie remembers sailing from Southampton with the sea being packed with ships.

"You couldn't put a table in between the landing crafts and motor torpedo boats. There were big ships and little ships, with the big ones firing over the top of us.

"The atmosphere was tense and we did about 10 to 12 trips, taking men off the troop ships onto the beaches.

"Once they were established on shore, we went back for another load so I knew we were doing alright.

"I had been at Salerno. There when we started to take troops back on board we knew things were not going well.

"On the first landing at Arromanches our air force had flattened most things and we had to watch out for wrecks and other obstacles on the way to the beach."

Georgie's landing craft for infantry moved east along the French beaches, then after almost three days was transferred to Cherbourg to help the Americans.

"The Yanks lost thousands of men. They were sitting ducks."

Eventually he headed back to Southampton, but not with an empty boat, for German prisoners of war were being taken off the French beaches.

"Most were very pleased to be captured, but there were a few that were plain nasty. They spat at us.

"We locked them in the troop decks and sent down soup and corned beef. They were well treated."

For Georgie the experiences of the D-Day landings had become a way a life, for he had already become used to the sights of war.

His flat bottomed American-built landing craft had four poop decks and carried 250 troops, seeing service in North Africa across the Mediterranean and into Italy.

He remembers almost losing his life when the Germans bombed his convoy, but the most horrific memory was off Algiers. As ships went down, Georgie's boat was sent to pick up bodies.

"I remember laying all these young Americans out on deck, some still teenagers.

"Even now I still think about those years. We were fighting for our country and for survival, after all Hitler was horrible.

"I think of all the things I got up to and wonder how the hell I survived. I am only 5ft 2ins, so I suppose all those bullets went over my head!"

Georgie spent five years in the Royal Navy and was awarded seven medals, which are framed and proudly displayed at his home in Dosset Court, Deal. He left the service as acting leading signalman.

In uniform he spent many an hour painting the ship, so after being demobbed he went into the painting and decorating trade and eventually worked at the Royal Marines barracks in Walmer.

He was at the depot for 33 years, for the last nine as area planning foreman, and retired at 60.

With four children from his first marriage, he married Gwendoline in the early 1970s and he has seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Although in a wheelchair, he still visits the navy club at the Landmark Centre in Deal and enjoys jigsaws and puzzle books at home.

He has never lost his sense of humour and will be 81 on December 24: "I don't like my birthday on Christmas Eve.

"I get one sock for my birthday and the other one for Christmas!"