D-DAY MEMORIES: THE D-Day landings are best remembered for the scenes on the beaches but many people were involved in advance operations

Albert Williams was part of a top-secret tactical advance team that crept through Normandy to Lunenburg Heath where the Germans finally surrendered.

Mr Williams, 83, from Yew Tree Close, Calne, served as a mechanic in the Royal Army Service Corps from 1940 to 1946.

At the time of the landings he was transferred to General Montgomery's 21st Army Group where he looked after vehicle maintenance.

Mr Williams remembers landing on Gold Beach at 7.30pm on D-Day and stayed in a brick works the following night.

Then they moved to Cruella and stayed at a place arranged by the resistance movement. This became their first headquarters in France.

Prior to the Normandy invasion, Montgomery assumed command of 21st Army Group, and commanded that formation for the rest of the war in Europe. After D-Day, and until Eisenhower came to France, and assumed command, Montgomery commanded all Allied ground forces.

Mr Williams said Montgomery's tactical unit included a series of mobiles housing a map room, cookhouse, offices, stores and even a mobile church.

"All the vehicles needed looking after and we had to keep moving. We went all the way up to Lunenburg Health where the Germans surrendered.

"General Montgomery got the surrender on May 4 but by the time it got through the Government it was not released to the world until May 7."

Mr Williams was amazed with the photographs coming out of Iraq today because during the Second World War even the troops were not allowed cameras. He said soldiers drew ink sketches instead. It was also an offence to write to their MP.

"I spent six years and nine months in the Army. I had £20 and a suit afterwards, that was it," he said.

His wife Cynthia Williams, 78, worked on making shell cases and she lost a boyfriend in 1943, killed in action in Italy.

She made parts for rockets put in the Typhoon aeroplanes.

"They could hit anything and could fly low. They were great planes."

Mr Williams is currently secretary of the Wiltshire Branch of the Normandy Veterans Association. He is organising a 60th anniversary trip to France in June.

One member, a former RAF pilot who flew the Typhoon's, is travelling over from Australia to take part in the event. The Normandy Veterans Association will hold a service of commemoration at Bayeux War Cemetery, followed by a parade through Arromanches, between two of the beaches where Allied soldiers went ashore.

The grandfather of Chippenham man Andy Harding was just 18 when he jumped into northern France hours before D-Day.

Paratrooper Paul Flachbart was part of the elite United States 506 parachute regiment, attached to the 101st Airborne Division, whose exploits are remembered in the television series Band Of Brothers.

The unit spearheaded the allied invasion and this year Mr Harding and his brother Mark will visit St Mere Eglise, near where the 506 were dropped, to honour their grandfather and his comrades.

"This is probably the last chance we're going to get to pay our respects to those great heroes who gave their lives for us," Mr Harding said. "It's are last chance to say thank you, because in ten years time there may not been any more veterans left."

506's mission was to land behind enemy lines at night and cut off the German's escape route from Utah beach, which was stormed by American troops on the morning of June 5. But German anti-aircraft guns disrupted the formations of paratrooper-carrying Dakota aeroplanes, scattering Pte Flachbart, from Ohio, and his comrades across the Cherbourg Peninsula.

When the troops reached the ground it became a desperate battle for survival as firefights broke out when small groups of confused and panicked paratroopers men stumbled upon the Germans.

Mr Harding, 38, of Blackwell Hams, in Pewsham, said 6,500 men jumped during the night, but 3,500 troops were lost, killed, captured or landed miles away from their drop zones.

Pte Flachbart jumped at 10am, but when he reached the ground discovered he was five miles from where he was supposed to be.

"He saw things that no 18-year-old should have to see," Mr Harding said. "It was a terrifying experience.

"No one should have to see that kind of death and destruction at such a young age. He said the worst thing was seeing other young men having their lives snuffed out and knowing there was nothing he could do for them. "My grandfather jumped into combat twice, but when he went home he wasn't old enough to buy a drink."

Able company was tasked with knocking out enemy guns, capturing strong points, bunkers, village's with strategic value and acting as a spearhead for the infantry.

The regiment was only supposed to be in combat for 72-hours after D-Day, enough time for the allies to consolidate a toe hold on Hitler's Fortress Europe. But it was not until six weeks later that a battle-worn Able company was sent back to Britain to recover from its heavy losses.

Pte Flachbart, who was decorated with the Purple Star and the Bronze Star for gallantry, fought at the Battle of The Bulge, and the bloody siege of Bustogne.

His unit also parachuted into Holland in operation Market Garden, Field Marshal Montgomery's botched attempt to sweep through the Netherlands.

He was badly wounded in Holland, but returned to action in time to help liberate the Londsberg concentration camp and capture Hitler's opulent palace at Berchtesgarten.

When the war ended he re-enlisted and commanded an artillery battery in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He retired with the rank of staff sergeant. Mr Harding said his grandfather, who died in 1997, met his grandmother Bett, of Penhill, in Swindon, at a dance in Shrivenham College.

They married and when the war ended the couple moved to the US, but after two years they separated and Mrs Harding, 76, moved back to Britain.

"He was a real life John Wayne character and the Army was his life," said his grandson.

See this week's 4 page 60th Anniversary of D-Day special in the Gazette & Herald