D-DAY MEMORIES: FROM Ken Hudson's window at Burnham House Care Home in Malmesbury, England is a green a pleasant land.
But his eyes are averted, staring beyond the wall of his single bedroom and 60-years into the past onto a beach in northern France, at the dawn of D-Day plus one.
"It is such a long time ago," he says. "It is just a memory now and I wonder if I was ever there, but I know I was."
Mr Hudson was a 19-year-old Royal Marine manning a LCM (Landing Craft Mechanised) carrying a three tonne Bedford truck and eight soldiers into a battle that marked the turning point in The Second World War. "There wasn't much serious fighting when we landed. There were a few shells shot at us and there were some of the fanatical SS who put up a good resistance," he said.
"There were a lot of bodies about but the ambulance crews started whipping them up quickly. There were also steel plates in a cross shape across the length of the beach and barbed wire which were underwater when the tide was up," he said.
His was part of an armada of 1,000 ships that had the task of supplying the invading Allied troops.
"We were very tense before setting off,'' he said.
"You didn't think about dying you just got on with your job.''
Mr Hudson's closest scrape came when he was sleep on his boat.
"I was sleeping in the locker which had all steel sides and was almost bullet proof, when I was woken up by a patter like sound.
"Next morning I asked my mates what was that noise like rain. They said it wasn't that rain but a German plane machine gunning. That was the only time I got close to death," he said.
But within the violent turmoil the strongest of bonds were formed between friends.
He said: "The camaraderie was wonderful. Your mates would give you their last pint of blood, we were all facing death together."
See this week's 4 page 60th Anniversary of D-Day special in the Gazette & Herald
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