My father, Jim Churm, who has died aged 102, was a D-day veteran and former Royal Navy medic; he later enjoyed a long career in nursing and physiotherapy.
Jim joined the navy as an 18-year-old during the second world war and trained as a sick berth attendant before being assigned to landing craft operations. On D-day, 6 June 1944, he sailed from Newhaven in East Sussex as the leading medic aboard a landing craft involved in the assault on Sword Beach, one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the allied invasion of France.