Steven Spielberg's latest film - about the D-Day landings - has brought back memories to a British veteran who witnessed the historic invasion first hand.

Bernard Harris, of Howarth Road, West Bowling, is secretary of the Bradford D-Day and Normandy Landings Veterans' Association - but he was a 17-year-old when he volunteered to join the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry as a boy soldier.

Four years later in 1944 he found himself huddled with hundreds of British soldiers on a boat anchored off the Isle of Wight, part of the D-Day armada which was to change the course of the Second World War.

At around 7.20am on June 6, he and thousands of British, American and Canadian troops made around twelve landings on beaches in Normandy in France, part of the first wave of the D-Day attack on German positions.

Mr Harris, now 76, still remembers the experience vividly and watching Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan at Bradford's Odeon Cinema brought the bloody, brutal and sometimes touching memories flooding back.

He told the Telegraph & Argus: "You had a dry mouth, part of it was excitement and part of it was apprehension that you were going to die.

"When we got on the landing barge, a friend of mine - Smudger Smith from Macclesfield - turned to me and said 'What do you feel Ginger, are you frightened?' and I replied 'I'm damn well terrified!'"

Mr Harris's regiment landed on the beach code named Sword. "Our landing craft captain took us right onto the beach, unlike some of the others who stopped short in the sea. Some lads drowned before they even made the beach.

"Our commanding officer ordered us to lie down and said the commander was assessing the situation. I said the situation was the Germans were firing at us!"

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.