A SECOND World War veteran from Cilgerran who played a key role in the initial assault wave on D-Day has died at the age of 98.

Squadron Leader Stan Smith ended his long and distinguished military career at RAE Aberporth in 1990, having transferred to the Royal Air Force from the Royal Navy in 1956.

As an 18-year-old Midshipman he was 1st Lieut (second-in-command) of a Landing Craft Tank (LCT) ferrying Sherman tanks towards Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Rough seas scuppered the planned launch of the tanks three miles offshore, so Mr Smith’s crew elected to land the LCT at Jig Green on Gold Beach despite heavy bombardment from German forces.

Recalling the episode over seventy years later, he said: “My job was to supervise the lowering of the ramp, then to stand on the end of it...and measure the depth of the water with a sounding pole.

“It was sufficiently shallow here to allow the first three tanks to swim a few yards before touching down on the sand at Asnelles-sur-Mer.

“Then a mortar bomb exploded about thirty feet behind me on the tank deck. I was unhurt, but one of my sailors was wounded, and the flotation screens of the two remaining tanks were ripped.

“The captain therefore had to drive the landing craft in closer so that these tanks could leave dry-shod.”

But the landing craft had been badly damaged and, having driven the ship so far up the beach, the captain was now struggling to pull off again.

“I was busy raising the ramp, and, with the aid of the coxswain, taking care of our casualty,” recounted Mr Smith.

“Eventually, our landing craft slid back into deeper water and floated off.

“As she moved astern, a stick of three mortar bombs exploded in the water immediately ahead of us – just about where I had been standing a few moments before.”

Tivyside Advertiser: Stan Smith pictured as a teenage Midshipman at the time of the D-Day landings in 1944.Stan Smith pictured as a teenage Midshipman at the time of the D-Day landings in 1944. (Image: Family photo)

Born at Highbury in 1925, Mr Smith joined the Royal Navy during the German bombing campaign of London because “I didn’t want to spend my war hiding under a staircase.”

In 1954, while serving aboard HMS Barhill, he was involved in the salvage of wreckage from a BOAC De Havilland Comet airliner which had crashed off the island of Elba that would prove a major contribution to passenger airline safety.

As a result of the amount of wreckage salvaged, it was discovered metal stress around the square windows caused the fuselage to disintegrate.

Ever since, airliners have had oval windows to relieve stress that could potentially cause similarly catastrophic fractures.

During his later career in the RAF, Mr Smith supervised the dispersal of oil caused by the 1967 Torrey Canyon disaster. Twelve years later he was present at Malta on the historic occasion when it ceased to be a British military base.

He continued to work with Air Sea Rescue Craft and, following his retirement from the RAF in 1978, with range vessels at RAE Aberporth.

Awarded the MBE for his military service in 1979, Mr Smith also received formal recognition of his actions on D-Day when receiving the Legion d’Honneur from French ambassador Sylvie Bermann at a ceremony in Cardiff in January 2016.

A former chairman of Cardigan Probus Club, he is survived by three children, Pamela, Philip and Barbara, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. His wife, Emily, and a sister pre-deceased him.

Mr Smith’s funeral will held at Parc Gwyn Crematorium, Narberth, on Wednesday.