FORMER Medway fireman Len Martin was a 25-year-old sergeant in the Royal Pioneer Corps Fire Service when he landed on Juno Beach two days after D-Day in 1944 and was shot by a sniper within hours.

"It was dead scary," said Len, now 85. "We didn't have the withering machinegun and mortar fire that our lads had on June 6, but there was considerable beach shelling and the noise and stench were appalling.

"A sniper, perhaps two miles away, shot me straight through the right ear, which cost me two stitches and two days of rest. Troops who came back to Courselles Harbour for a rest in the landing craft there said it was a bloody sight worse there than it was on the frontline."

In Couselles-Sur-Mer, Len and his section were charged with taking fire calls from the beach head throughout June and July.

They dealt with many fires aboard landing craft, tanks and ships in the Mulberry Harbour.

Sgt Martin, with his 22 men, had travelled to Juno Beach by landing craft from Newhaven and he didn't even get his Army boots wet.

"Men from the Pioneer Corps waded out to the landing craft with duck-boards on their shoulders so that we could walk on to the beach and keep dry," he said.

A former auxiliary fireman in Gillingham, and a riveter for Short Brothers in Rochester, Len was called up on September 1, 1939. Two months after landing on Juno beach, he and his men reached Amiens as part of Operation Overlord and went on to Nijmegen as part of Operation Market Garden.

Freda Martin, 89, Len's wife of 61 years and a clippie on M&D Buses when her husband was in Normandy, said: "I did worry about him we all did, all the wives, worried about their husbands."

With tears in her eyes, Freda added: "One night my driver and I picked up some RAF girls and boys from Gravesend after an evening out and took them back to their base.

"We heard a massive bang after we dropped them off and when we got back to the depot the inspector said: 'You have just picked up some RAF people from Gravesend, haven't you? I am afraid I have some bad news for you. They all died in a bomb blast.'"

After the war, Len worked as a full-time firefighter for 36 years.

He said: "Believe me, war is not quite the same as [it is portrayed] in films. After a night of shellfire, to emerge from one's shelter and see parts of numerous bodies, and [experience] the smell of blood and death, it is sickening.

"As a Normandy and Market Garden veteran, I often go back to Normandy and Holland, as I will this year, to visit the battle areas and the cemeteries and read the epitaphs on the headstones with tears in my eyes, saying: 'There but for the grace of God . . .'"