A D-Day veteran has spoken of his sad memories of seeing young Americans slaughtered.

George Chandler, from Burgess Hill, was just 19 years old when he served aboard the British motor torpedo boat MTB 710 as part of a flotilla which provided a guarding escort for the US Army assault on Omaha and Utah beaches.

For about three months without a break, Mr Chandler’s flotilla returned to Newhaven each night for refuelling and rearming and a few hours of sleep before returning across the Channel.

The 99-year-old said: “Let me assure you, what you read in those silly books that have been written about D-Day is absolute crap, it’s a load of old rubbish.

“I was there, how can I forget it? It’s a very sad memory because I watched young American Rangers not shot, slaughtered.

The Argus: George Chandler was just 19-year-old when he served in NormandyGeorge Chandler was just 19-year-old when he served in Normandy (Image: PA)

“And they were young. I was 19 at the time, these kids were younger than me when I was there and I saw them shot.”

He spoke on Monday at a gathering of veterans at the headquarters where D-Day was planned.

About 40 veterans met at Southwick House, near Portsmouth, which was the headquarters of Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower.

The Argus: Normandy veteran George Chandler, 99, from Burgess HillA giant map still adorns a wall in the 19th-century manor house which is now home to the Defence School of Policing and Guarding.

After the Normandy campaign, Mr Chandler’s boat was deployed to the Mediterranean where it suffered damage before being sunk in April 1945.

Marie Scott, now 97, was also at the event. She served with the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) at Fort Southwick as a “switchboard operator” using a machine connected to the landing forces in France.

Her job was to pass messages from the troops on the beaches to the leaders of Operation Overlord, Gen Eisenhower and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who were stationed nearby in Southwick House.

Ms Scott – who was awarded France’s highest order of merit, the Legion d’Honneur – described how she could hear the reality of the battle taking place.

She said: “I was a little bemused when I first heard it, then I thought to myself, ‘Oh, you know, this is war’.

“You could hear everything, machine gun fire, cannon fire, bombs dropping, men shouting, the general chaos.”