D-DAY ANNIVERSARY: In a few days, thousands of veterans will head to Normandy to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the greatest ever seaborne military invasion.
Yet for some the memories are still too raw for them to make the pilgrimage to the beaches where many of their comrades died.
Mr George Berry was just 18 when his Royal Navy craft reached Sword Beach in the first wave on June 6th, 1944.
Yesterday, as D-Day veterans gathered at the Imperial War Museum in London for a reunion ahead of the anniversary, he spoke of how he was forced to pull servicemen from the water after they were killed trying to make it to the shores.
Mr Berry (78), of Orpington, Kent, said: "If we couldn't get right to the beaches, they had to go into the water. They had their backpacks on, and if they fell back they couldn't get up and they drowned. We would pick them up out of the water with a boat hook.
"There are some bad memories. I shan't go back this time, there are too many vivid memories."
Among those who joined the reunion was Mr Denis Edwards, who was in the first glider to land at Pegasus Bridge just after midnight on June 6th.
"We had to dive straight down to avoid the flak. We hit the ground at 100 m.p.h., and the damn wheels came off. They were only plywood, the gliders."
Mr Edwards (79), of Lancing, West Sussex, added: "We didn't have time to be scared; we had been drilled and drilled and drilled and practised the task in Exeter."
Dropping out of the sky in the Horsa gliders, known as flying coffins, men from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry brought the allies their first D-Day success with the capture of the bridge.
Mr Edwards said it was just chance that his was the first glider to land. "One guy got dragged off course, and the other five of us did what we had to do."
After D-Day the 19-year-old acted as a sniper. "I used to go searching for Germans. I would go out into no-man's land, giving them a hard time."
Actor Richard Todd, star of films The Dambusters and The Longest Day, served with the Sixth Airborne Division, and was the first man of the main force to parachute out over Normandy on D-Day. Of jumping first, he said yesterday: "It wasn't my choice. I was actually in aircraft number 33. When I got to the aircraft there was a senior officer there, and he said we're going in first."
Mr Todd (84) added: "It meant I was going to be on the ground on my own for a second or two.
"It was successful in that we achieved our objectives . . . but we lost half the battalion. My feeling now, I suppose, is relief that I'm still here - for the moment, anyway."
Pte Fred Bentley (80) was in the sixth battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, and landed on Gold Beach in the first wave.
"They gave us body stockings made of gas cape so we could wade ashore. But the landing craft wouldn't go in close enough. We stripped the capes off and got ashore, partly swimming and partly wading."
Mr Bentley was later blinded during the battle for Caen. "We came across a German . . . and he chucked a grenade, and it landed a foot from my nose. I knew I was blinded immediately."
Lieut Commander Alexander Heggie (85), from Portreath, Cornwall, was part of the 16th Minesweeper Flotilla of the Royal Navy. He was responsible for clearing channels to the Omaha and Utah beaches ahead of the US task force.
On reaching Omaha beach, he said: "We cleared the area. The tank-landing craft came in with our chaps and we were allowed to withdraw. We had been up for two nights and two days. While we were at anchor we saw some of the landing craft coming back.
"They had six big pallets with piles of dead and dying Americans. That was a very sombre moment to see them being brought back."
Mr Heggie said he had returned several times to Normandy to visit the cemeteries near Omaha. "When we attend those ceremonies you feel pride and thankfulness that it was a success, but there's also the fact that it was such a big sacrifice of young fellas."