Family of D-Day veteran travel to Sword Beach

Ann Ansell and her son Michael have visited the graves of unknown sailors at Bayeux

A woman has travelled to Normandy with her son to see for herself the beaches where her father landed on D-Day.

Ann Ansell from Werrington in Staffordshire said: "It's very emotional to think that my dad was here, 80 years ago and survived and we're here to tell the story."

Bert James from Stoke-on-Trent was an Able Seaman Gunner who took soldiers to Sword Beach on 6 June 1944.

Before his death, he said he would always remember having to bury the crew of one landing craft at sea, and never knowing their names.

D-Day marked the start of the Allied invasion in order to retake Nazi-occupied parts of Europe.

Ms Ansell visited Sword Beach ahead of the anniversary and said: "To this day I just cannot comprehend what he went through. What all those other lads went through."

"Looking at the water as it is today and thinking that was full.

She added: "What I can't comprehend is the noise that there must have been. They couldn't hear themselves think."

She said there would have been "hundreds and hundreds of young men who hadn't got a clue if they were going to live or die".

Michael Ansell, her son, said: "He would have had the cold, the wet, obviously he didn't know what was coming to face him.

"I can imagine he was probably quite nervous. He probably kept himself to himself."

Bert James was tasked with transporting soldiers to Sword Beach

Bert James said he never forgot having to bury the crew of a landing craft at sea

Before his death, Mr James spoke to the Stoke Sentinel about the D-Day landings and recalled being told to transfer to a landing craft which had lost its crew.

He said later that he and his comrades were left to bury the dead men at sea.

Mr James said he had been back to Bayeux cemetery several times since to see the graves of unknown sailors.

"I often wonder, are you the lads I put over the side? I shall never know of course," he said.

Ann Ansell and her son tried to put themselves in the minds of the British servicemen

Ms Ansell also visited Bayeux cemetery and said a few words at the graves of the unknown sailors.

Looking at the rows of graves she said: "I've never seen anything like it, its just horrendous to think that all these stones that there's a young man who's died for the cause."

She also said her father had never stopped thinking about those sailors he had buried at sea.

She added: "I can understand now why he came.

"The guilt he felt by doing what he did, what he had to do stayed with him until he died."