Hundreds of soldiers from York and North and East Yorkshire were among those who stormed the Normandy shores on D-Day. STEVE CARROLL talks to two veterans about their experiences on Gold Beach.

THEY landed on Gold Beach within ten minutes of each other.

As part of the massive invasion force charged with establishing a beachhead, Kenneth Smith and Lance Sergeant Herbert Scaife hit the shores of France at about 7.30am.

Gold was the code name for the centre beach of Operation Overlord. More than five miles wide, it included the coastal towns of La Riviere and Le Hamel, with Arromanches at the western end.

The landings began an hour later than on the American beaches, but the fire which faced Kenneth and Herbert was as fierce as anywhere else on the Normandy coastline.

"There was so much commotion, you just didn't know what was going on," said tank driver Kenneth, of Tadcaster, who landed at Gold as part of the 73rd artillery regiment.

"There were guns firing from over the top of us, missiles were dropping short, it was a terrible day. All you thought about doing was getting off the beach.

"Driving through the beach looking only through the periscope of a tank, it was really hard. We were running across people and we just didn't know who they were."

The British 2nd Army, comprising of 50th Division with Green Howards and East Yorkshire regiment troops, were those charged with securing the central beachhead.

The Germans were mostly housed at Le Hamel and La Riviere but their fighting positions were vulnerable to naval gunfire and a shore bombardment before the landings paved the way for British soldiers.

Herbert, who was in the 6th armoured tank division, won a distinguished conduct medal for his role on Gold Beach.

The York man remembers the casualties who never left the beach on June 6, 1944. He said: "The regiment headed up the assault on D-Day. It was pretty hectic and there were a lot of casualties. It is difficult to explain how you felt.

"Our task was to clear the beach and clear a path. We got off the beach and went straight into a minefield. Then we went to aid a regiment which had got stuck.

"They were held down by fire from a sanatorium and the infantry couldn't get through. We had a special type of gun. It was short-range and fired a big missile which was designed to crack concrete.

"The only thing was you had to get fairly close up with it. I put one or two shots into the sanatorium and smashed it up.

"I wasn't in an assault tank. We did a lot of set-piece work, but later on we did come across Panzer and Tiger tanks. They were immense."

There was no German armour on the beach, but the work that day by men like Kenneth Smith and Herbert Scaife allowed the landing of 25,000 men with just 400 casualties.

By the end of D-Day, the 50th Division had penetrated six miles inland and had joined up with the Canadians who landed at Juno. The fight to liberate Europe had begun.

Updated: 12:25 Saturday, June 05, 2004