D-Day hero Henry, 91, receives highest French honour after more than 70 years

It was a baptism of fire, but more than 70 years later he has received France’s highest decoration – the Legion d’Honneur – for his role in helping liberate Europe.

Now aged 91, Henry, from Weeley Heath, recalls his memories of D-Day.

THE voyage across the Channel to Sword Beach on board the landing craft was “grim”.

Nineteen-year-old Henry Hayes was cooped up in a Sherman tank with the four other crew members as they tried to stay dry in the pouring rain and battering seas.

A couple of weeks earlier he had been stationed in Suffolk with 4/7 Royal Dragoon Guards.

Suddenly his unit was sent to Fratton Park, near Portsmouth.

“We spent all the daylight hours God gave us getting the tanks ready, but we didn’t know what for,” said Henry.

“The next thing we knew we moved to Portsmouth and were loaded on board a boat.

“It was grim. The weather was terrible. The landings had been put back 24 hours because of the weather and we spent the best part of 24 hours inside the tank because it was the only place to stay dry.

“We couldn’t cook meals or anything. We had self-heating soup. You put a cigarette end to a little tab at the top and it heated the can of tomato soup up. It was brilliant – and at least it kept us going.

“We were in a huge convoy. Suddenly a landing craft 100 yards away just disappeared. Whether it was torpedoed or hit a mine, I don’t know.

“You don’t stop to pick anyone up – you just keep going. You wonder when your turn is coming.”

The tanks had an ingenious canvas skirt which meant they could float and ‘swim’ through the water, powered by two 14-inch propellers.

Luckily Henry’s Sherman trundled down the landing craft’s ramp straight on to Sword Beach.

“The Americans lost a hell of a lot of tanks because the water was so rough,” he said.

“We went straight onto the beach.

“It was a case of every man for himself. You took on targets as required. The whole object was to get clear of the beach and get inland.

“It took about half an hour to get off the beach.

“You couldn’t see a great deal because visibility is pretty limited through the small periscopes.

“But there was a lot of noise with everything going on about you. A tank is a noisy vehicle at the best of times “We were under fire – machine gun fire probably – but nothing big hit us.

“There were five in the crew. We were all pretty frightened, knowing full well that our guns were no use at all to attack anything more than 200 yards away.

“The Germans had far more range.

“We were firing at anything we could see that was in our way. I had a Browning .30 machine gun and the main gun also had a machine gun.

“There was the smell of cordite all the time.You fired at anything enemy that came into view. You fired to make the other side keep their heads down.

“It was a lot for a young man to take in. You are just thrown into it.”

It was Henry’s first time in action.

After D-Day he was sent to a holding unit which preparing tanks for battle and repairing those which had been damaged.

“The Sherman was better than British tanks but if one of them got hit it just burst into flames,” he said.

“The Germans called them Tommy-cookers.

“I lost quite a few mates. When a tank was knocked out you didn’t have much chance.”

After the war he remained in the Army, serving in Italy, Germany and the Far East with the 4th Hussars, before eventually leaving in 1965.

Henry had met future wife Rae in Colchester’s Abbey Fields in 1948, ten days before he was due to sail to Malaya.

“We got engaged while I was away and kept corresponding all the time.

“I came home on December 16, 1951, and we got married on January 12, 1952.”

The couple were married for 60 years before Rae passed away in 2012.

“We had three children and each of them has three children, and now I’ve got three great-grandchildren and am very proud of them all.”

Henry is thrilled to receive the Legion d’Honneur from the French government for the part he played on D-Day.

“I am very proud of it,” he said.