This rare photograph shows Southampton's 11,951-ton vessel, Llangibby Castle after returning from the Second World War Normandy invasion beaches in June 1944.

Built for Union-Castle by Harland and Wolff, the ship first entered service in 1929 and was requisitioned as a troop ship in 1940.

In this photograph, belonging to local author Jim Bellows of Calmore, the ship can be seen covered in oil from sunken ships off the D-Day beaches in France while scrambling nets to disembark troops can just been seen hanging from the side of the vessel.

Llangibby Castle had just delivered part of the Canadian 3rd Division, which had been previously encamped at Boldre Wood in the New Forest, on to Sword Beach in Normandy.

According to shipping historian Peter Newall in his book Union-Castle Line, A Fleet History, the ship made more than 60 trips between Southampton and Normandy, carrying in excess of 100,000 troops.

For seven months in 1946 the ship was used in repatriating West African soldiers from India and with no stay in port longer than three days, her time away from Southampton was recorded as the longest voyage made by a company-owned vessel.

After the war the ship returned to the around-Africa service but in June, 1954 she was sold for scrap and broken up in Wales.