AFTER storming Gold Beach on D-Day in 1944, Trooper Stanley Cox was prepared to take on the enemy as a tank gunner.

But the 19-year-old from East Hagbourne, near Didcot, found his war cut short when his tank was hit by a shell after leaving Bayeux in Normandy.

Now, at the age of 91, he has been honoured with a special medal for his bravery.

The teenager with A Squadron of the Notts Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry was the last of his crew to escape the burning tank and as he jumped clear he was struck down by shrapnel.

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After being taken to back to England he spent the next nine months in hospital before being discharged in March 1945.

The former shop manager, who lives with wife Joan, 90, said he was delighted to receive the Legion D’Honneur medal, the highest decoration in France.

But it has brought back painful memories of the day when he almost lost his life.

He said: “As I jumped off the back of the tank the artillery hit us again.

“As I fell I was hit by the shrapnel and bits of the track which were blown off.

“I felt no pain from my wounds but realised I was bleeding from my leg and arm.

“The ammunition was soon exploding and smoke and flames were belching out of the turret.

“The rest of the crew dragged me into the trees. I was wounded in the leg, arm and backside.

“It was a good job I wasn’t still under the tank as I would have been roasted alive.”

Mr Cox, who set sail for Normandy from Southampton on June 5, 1944, recalled that after he was discharged his wounds healed but he was left with a paralysed left arm and had to wear a brace on his leg.

“I still have shrapnel in my back now and when I was in hospital recently it showed up on the X-ray,” he added.

The former tank gunner said D-Day itself was “a memory never forgotten”, adding: “As day broke the sea was covered with thousands of ships.

“Then came the landing and not knowing what was going to happen to us was daunting.

“At night the whole beachhead was lit up with shell and bullet tracers and search lights – this was a firework display never to be matched by any other display in later years.”

Father-of-three Mr Cox has returned Normandy on a number of occasions to pay tribute to fallen comrades and visit their graves as part of the Big Lottery Fund’s Heroes Return scheme.

The grandfather-of-nine, who has 14 great-grandchildren, added: “I am absolutely delighted to get this medal –t came through the post.”

A letter from the French Ambassador in London told Mr Cox: “I have the pleasure of informing you that the President of the Republic has appointed you to the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre national de la Legion D’Honneur.”

The letter said the medal was in recognition of his “steadfast involvement” in the liberation of France in the Second World War.