The youngest soldier to take part in the D-Day landings during the Second World War has received France's highest military award, the Legion of Honour.
Stanley Gilbert, 90, was drafted into the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, "one of the crack regiments in the British army", days after turning 18. "It was a shock to be called up to go to war when all I'd done was go to school - and leaving home for the first time in my life. It was scary."
He recalled that landing on the Nazi-occupied Normandy beaches in June 1944 was "very frightening. But you just had to get on with it. The sea was rough, so most of us were feeling a bit sick when we landed. The first battle was over Caen, a big, very well-defended town which took nearly six weeks to clear of Germans.
"The Germans were firing on us all the time as they were retreating and our tanks were outgunned because we only had 75mm bullets as opposed to the Germans' 88mm. You didn't want to meet a German tank head-on."
He added that he had learned to live with fear because "you can't show that you're scared in front of your colleagues. I did daring things I wouldn't usually have done because I wanted to show everyone that I wasn't frightened, that I was a real soldier."
Post-war, he went into his father's grocery business, Samuel Stores in West Hampstead, which he eventually took over. He lives in Finchley with his partner Margot.
