Today is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. What was it like to take part in the battle that eventually led to liberation of Europe?

Those of us who have watched the first 15 minutes of the movie Saving Private Ryan might think we have some idea of the horror experienced by those landing on the shores in Normandy, but of course we can never really understand it from the comfort of our fireside sofa in front of the TV.

One Maidstone man who could have told us something about it chose not to.

Albert Smitherman, known as Bert, left his pregnant wife Esther at home in Pope Street to join the second wave of Allied Forces, landing on the Normandy coast on June 14, 1944, - eight days after D-Day. The British had still not broken out from the beach-head and were in a desperate battle to capture Caen from the Germans just nine miles from the coast.

The city sitting astride the Orne River and Caen Canal and at the junction of several roads and railways was a vital objective for both sides.

The Allies particularly needed to capture it to move on to the flatter countryside beyond so that they could more easily land supplies by aircraft.

The fighting was fierce and victory was not achieved until August 6, and then only after the Allies had carpet-bombed the city, causing heavy loss of life among the French civilian population.

The Allies suffered more than 50,000 casualties killed or wounded and Bert Smitherman was one of them.

Bert was a tank driver in the 29th Armoured Brigade, which was equipped with American-built Sherman tanks.

He had been in France 36 days and in action most of that time when his tank took a direct hit. Badly burnt and with a broken arm, Bert was the only survivor. The other four men in the crew were all killed.

His daughter Jean Howland said: "We sometimes used to ask my father about the war, but he would never talk about it. Only once did he say: 'When you've seen your best mate's head blown off, you don't want to remember.'"

Mr Smitherman came late to the war. Born and brought up in Maidstone, and a pupil at Westborough School where he was in the football team that won the Maidstone Schools League, the young Bert had become an apprentice builder with Cox Bros. When war was declared, he was considered to be in a reserved occupation, as the firm switched from building new homes to repairing bomb damage.

It was while helping to rebuild the Gillingham bus station after a bombing raid that he met his wife to be. Ironically Ester Gaunt, who was known as Tess, had come to Kent from London in an attempt to escape the German bombing. She was working as a clippie (bus conductress) at the bus station.

They married at St Michael's Church in Tonbridge Road in 1942.

Within months Mr Smitherman was called up and was based first in Catterick then at Aldershot. His initial duties after training were easy enough, and seemed to consist mainly of ferrying captured Germans to PoW camps in South Wales, but that changed as D-Day approached.

Mrs Howland said: "It was supposed to be hush-hush but the men knew when they were going and where, because they were issued with French money. The wives, including my mother, gathered outside the barracks and when the tanks rolled out to head for Portsmouth and embarkation, they placed a white flower from the rhododendron bushes there on each of them.

My mother always used to say there were so many tanks that the bushes were stripped bare by the time they had all passed.

"She always felt very bad about it because one of the wives she met there and became friendly with was married to someone in Dad's tank crew. She had two small children and of course her husband never came home."

After his injury, Bert Smitherman was evacuated to a hospital in Bridlington, where his wife, who had received notification that he had been wounded, rushed to see him.

"He was covered with gentian violet and with his arm in a sling," said Mrs Howland, "but what was worse was that he was suffering terrible shell-shock, which I think he never really got over."

He was discharged unfit on November 10 after serving - as his discharge certificate notes - three years and 41 days. His conduct was marked "exemplary" and he was awarded a pension of 8s 6d a week (42.5p).

When he was physically recovered, Mr Smitherman returned to Cox Bros and helped build many of the new estates around Maidstone, before transferring for the last 10 years of his working life to Fremlins brewery, where he worked in the maintenance department.

Despite his experiences, Mr Smitherman never harboured any anti-German feelings. Mrs Howland said: "Once when the family were on holiday in Spain, my father met a German who had fought against him in Normandy. They became firm friends, going on holiday together and keeping in touch throughout their lives."

In 1992, when he was 81, the family attended a military show at Folkestone, where Mr Smitherman was interested to find a Sherman tank of the vintage he had driven.

The couple had moved to No 327 Tonbridge Road in 1947, and stayed there in the same house until their deaths: Mr Smitherman in 1996 and Mrs Smitherman in 2000.

Mrs Howland said: "My father would not have described himself as a hero. He was just a regular hard-working guy who did his bit."