LARRY Smithers narrowly escaped death by sheltering in a freezer store as bombs rained down around him.

To this day, the shell-shocked D-Day veteran, who was knocked unconscious in the chaos of the aerial assault and was stretchered back to Blighty, remembers his comrades dying around him.

But having survived one of the bloodiest battles in modern history, the 80-year-old’s hopes of finally returning to the French beaches to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day have now been dashed by simple bureaucratic red tape.

His failure to secure a concessionary passport means the former infantryman will have to settle for lighting a candle in his local church in Sittingbourne instead.

He said: “Asylum seekers get into this country without passports and we then treat them with kid-gloves, but I cannot go to France this weekend to pay my respects to my fallen comrades. It’s just so unfair. I’m a widower on income support so could not afford to buy a passport.”

Mr Smithers, of Larkfield Avenue, Milton Regis, landed on Sword Beach two days after the initial invasion and saw many of his comrades die as they made their way to the River Orme, near the famous Pegasus Bridge.

He said: “I am still suffering from shell-shock from the time the Americans dropped bombs on us in Normandy as they were advancing after D-Day. They mistook us for Germans in all the chaos. About 20 of my mates fell dead near me.”

Mr Smithers applied to the Royal British Legion to get a concessionary passport under the National Lottery’s Veterans Agency Scheme but was told there were too many applicants. He then applied under the Government’s free passport scheme.

But he received a letter from the Royal British Legion on May 18 which said he could only get a passport if he had a specific itinerary fixed, but by then it was too late to book because of the demand for hotels and tours.

Close friend Geraldine Feltham, of Yeates Drive, Sittingbourne, said: “He didn’t need a passport or a reservation to send him to risk his life for our freedom and to watch his comrades die.

“Why can’t we cut through the red tape and let this old soldier say farewell to his fallen friends for what may be his last time?

“This is a disgraceful way to treat a war hero who put his life on the line for this country.”

Fred Langworthy, chairman of the Sittingbourne and Milton Regis branch of the Royal British Legion, said: “I sympathise with Larry but there was just such a big demand to go to Normandy.”

Mr Smithers says he will light a candle in Holy Trinity Church on Sunday - the 60th anniversary of D-Day - to his fallen comrades in the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.