FORMER Simon Langton pupil Peter Smoothy, now 79, was in Calcutta with the Royal Navy when his ship got the order to return to the UK immediately.

It was December 1943, and Mr Smoothy, who grew up in Herne Bay, had travelled from America to the Mediterranean and the Far East since being called up the year before.

His job was secretary to the captain of the ship, which he had got by virtue of his stint in 1941 in the clerk's department of Herne Bay Urban District Council.

When he landed back in Portsmouth in February 1944 to prepare for D-Day, his training took on a fresh focus.

"We did what are called 'working up' trials," he said. "We practised landings and unloading troops and tanks along the south coast to Devon, where the beaches are similar to the ones in Normandy.

"As the number of ships and landing craft of all shapes and sizes grew and grew, it became common knowledge we were going to invade, but we did a great job of disguising it.

"We loaded our Landing Ship Tank (LST) 215 at Gosport, eight days before D-Day, with several hundred Canadian and British troops, maybe 30 Sherman tanks on the upper decks and ammunition, food and water.

"We sailed out of The Solent on the evening of June 5 with hundreds of other landing craft of one sort or another. The minesweepers had been in front of us. The Germans didn't really know we were coming.

"At about 2am on D-Day, halfway across the Channel, we were called to action stations.

"I was on a landing ship, not a fighting ship, so we had about six twin 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and just one 12-pounder. I was with the crew of the 12-pounder, passing messages from the gunnery officer on the bridge to those directing the gun. So I would tell him portside 45 degrees plus the angle of elevation, or estimated angle of elevation if firing at aircraft.

"We got into Juno beach at about 7.30am on D-Day. There were quite a few shells firing at us. The ones you could hear were all right. It was the ones you couldn't that were the deadliest.

"I was sitting up in the gun turret, taking orders from the bridge, setting the gun target and firing off rounds. Rhino ferries flat, tank-carrying shallow water vessels would marry onto the front of our LST and the tanks would simply roll down onto it and be carried ashore. The Rhinos crossed from our front to the shore about three times to unload all our stuff and it wasn't until nightfall that we got unloaded. Then we got a message to wait, because we were to carry back some German prisoners of war.

"There were shells dropping about, but we didn't get bombed. The first wave of beach landings had been in front of us. They'd had the worst task finding themselves immediately face to face with the Germans.

"By 9am next day, when we left, they'd sent us about 600 German prisoners. But now we only had about six rifles on board and two seamen either side of the empty tank deck guarding all the Germans.

"We were one of the first LSTs with prisoners back in Southampton. As they gathered them up, they loaded us up again with tanks, vehicles and troops. We went back and forth like that. In our flotilla, there had been nine ships, but after a few crossings we didn't know where the rest were. We were like a hen who'd lost her chicks."