I suppose I was scared, but you didn't really think about it at the time

He tells STEVE CARROLL his story.

IT'S probably fair to say that if there was one place you didn't want to be on D-Day, it was inside a floating tank approaching the shore.

"They called them Tommy cookers", said Tom Buck, referring to the Sherman tank on which he, and four others, were propelled onto Sword beach at about 6am on D-Day. "It was because that if they got hit they just went up in smoke."

Tom, from Acomb, was the tank sergeant on a duplex drive vehicle which was launched as part of the first wave of the Allied invasion of France.

"Some of them just went straight down. They had two propellers on the back and we were launched about a mile out. The flak from above was just tremendous," he said.

"There was so much it was just confusing. You couldn't tell which was ours and which was theirs. It just seemed that there was firing from all directions. I suppose I was scared, but you didn't really think about it at the time.

"If you were lucky you got away with it, but many didn't."

As a member of B Squadron of the 1318 Royal Hussars, the push on to the beaches had been the focus of intensive training for many months.

But nothing prepared Tom for the moment his tank hit the beach at Sword. "There were a lot of snipers around on the beach," he said.

"We were trying to head for Ouistreham but it took a while. It was horrendous. I was 23 and, as the sergeant, it was my head that was outside the tank. They call it the Longest Day, and it was. I feel very fortunate to have survived it."

Fortunate indeed, for just hours after hitting the coast of France, Tom and his crew of four could have perished on the very first day.

He said: "Our tank exploded after hitting a Teller mine. It was about two or three miles from shore and we were in a minefield, although we didn't know that of course.

"It ripped half the tracks off. We were all inside, but we survived. I never thought I wasn't going to get out. I just felt immune that day. I didn't think I would get killed.

"I got through three tanks that week. The second one, the gun was rubbish. We couldn't centre it, it just flopped around all over the place. There were a lot of skirmishes, a lot of bombardments.

"We came through towards the rendezvous point at Ouistreham and there was infantry everywhere. The battle was going on all around us."

Tom was not on his way to Normandy this weekend but said he would be remembering lost friends and colleagues on tomorrow as the world celebrated the efforts of those who struck a blow for freedom on June 6, 1944.

Updated: 12:29 Saturday, June 05, 2004