As the invasion forces poured ashore on D-Day the tanks and armoured vehicles were under orders not to stop for anything. Lying in front of them on the Normandy beaches were the Allied dead and wounded.

It was one of the horrors of war which stayed forever with Gunner Ron Kaye, part of the crew of a Sexton self propelled gun – a tank with a 25-pounder artillery piece in place of the turret.

Now, 10 months after his death, his story is being told in a new book which is being launched in Oswestry on February 2.

“Gunner Kaye” has been written by military historian Simon Evans and is based on taped interviews with Mr Kaye – who acquired the post-war nickname “Danny” Kaye – and lived in Kinnerley, near Oswestry.

“It was very good for him,” said Danny’s son, Willy, from Oswestry.

“It was a healing process for him really. He had never really talked that in-depth about it before. I think it did him a lot of good to go that in-depth. I think it exorcised a lot of demons for him.

“There are stories of the actual D-Day landing itself and all the wounded on the beach. They were ordered not to stop. He said you did not know if the guy in front of the tank you drove over was injured or dead. They had to get off the beach. He said that took some living with, the thought of whether they were alive or not when they went over them.”

As it happens, this haunting memory does not appear in the book, and the reason seems to be that it left him with terrible feelings of guilt and he found it too painful and asked for it not to be included.

There are plenty of other horrors. Like handing over about a dozen German prisoners to the French Resistance who said they would take them back to the beaches, only for them to take them round the corner and shoot them all. This happened a lot, Mr Kaye recounts.

And going into the back room of a French cafe to find a pile of pregnant French women all bayoneted to death because they were “sympathisers” bearing the children of German soldiers.

The private invitation-only launch of “Gunner Kaye” is at the Ironworks in Church Street, Oswestry, at 2pm on February 2. Present will be author Simon Evans, who will be signing copies of his book, and many of Danny’s family and friends.

All profits from the first edition of “Gunner Kaye” will go to two charities. Danny actively supported the first, the Normandy Veterans Association, for many years. The second is a charity started by two sisters who have founded a school for underprivileged children in Gambia.

Copies of the book can be bought through a website – www.gunnerkaye.com – at a cost of £10, with postage and packing free.

The seeds of the book idea were planted in September 2002, when fate brought Mr Evans, who is from Laugharne in West Wales, and Mr Kaye together.

Willy said: “We were at a presentation in Normandy. There is a Sexton monument in Ver-sur-Mere, the little village where my dad landed.

“We were over there, myself, my nephew – my father’s grandson, Jolyon – and my father, and one evening we were just relaxing over a drink in a bar in Normandy. A Welshman introduced himself. He said ‘You don’t mind if I join you? You’re the only ones I can hear talking English in the bar.’

“It turned out that he was Simon Evans, an amateur historian, and a part time writer. One thing led to another. We said we had always wanted to get dad’s story down before it was too late. He said let’s talk about it when we get back. We exchanged phone calls. He would talk to dad and interview him.”

From his interviews and telephone conversations, he wrote the book about how a young lad from Wallasey went to war, and fought throughout the campaign up to VE Day after landing on D-Day.

Mr Kaye, who came to Shropshire after the war, died in March last year, the day before his 84th birthday, and happily did see a version of his biography before his death.

Willy said: “I got it photocopied at the local newsagents and had 125 copies and bound the books myself. So he did see it in book form, although it did not look like ‘Gunner Kaye’ looks now. He missed the final publication by a few months, which was sad. He knew it was coming. He was proud.”

The manuscript has benefited from a going-over by a leading authority on the regiment, Colonel John Sainsbury, who corrected one or two minors errors which had inevitably crept in in trying to recall things so long after the event.

Willy added: “It is a historically correct piece of work. This is why we are presenting it to the local schools in the area.

“At the book launch a representative from Wrexham University will be receiving a classroom of books for free and I spoke to the head of the Marches School, Oswestry, and he will be coming along to accept a classroom of books for the Marches School.”