IT was the first time he could pay homage to his three comrades at their gravestones in Bayeux Cemetery.

For 89-year-old Ernie Spacagna, a former Royal Army Service Corps driver, it was time to remember the young men he laughed and fought alongside.

First there was James McNee, who slept in a bed next to him and played his gramophone records in the evening, most frequently chopsticks.

Ernie remembers the corporal whose last agonising words were "please shoot me" after he was run over by a tank while riding a motorbike.

He lost his legs in the accident on the Bayeux by-pass that was under construction on October 27, 1944, a day Ernie has never forgotten.

"He was the same age as me and would have been 90 today if he had survived."

During a moment's silence Ernie, wiping away a tear, placed a small wooden remembrance cross with a poppy among the flowers in front of the white headstone.

Then Ernie, who was one of thousands of men who landed on Sword Beach on D-Day, made his way to plot XII, D 19, to remember his fellow driver, Frank Weeks, who died aged 32 on June 21, 1944.

Ernie had been called to the headquarters outside Caen that morning to cut Frank's hair, as well as give haircuts to several other servicemen. Afterwards Frank went to have a bath with some of the others in a wooden tub outside.

The bangs that Ernie then heard, just 50 metres away, has never left him.

It was German shellfire instantly killing all the men in the bath.

"I could hear them laughing and joking and then I heard this noise," said Ernie, who points to a tree close by to demonstrate how near he was.

"I looked across and they were all burnt, I felt terrible, words cannot describe what it was like."

Ernie then went to mark his respects to Arthur Henderson, who was 24 when he was killed on June 21, 1944.

"He was my little drummer and played in my band. I played the accordion. I had also cut his hair before he died in the bath under the shellfire."

Ernie, who went on to run a hairdressing salon, worked as a tipper truck driver, first transporting shells and then debris from bombed out towns and villages.

The last time the father of four, of Bugle Street, Southampton, made the pilgrimage to Bayeux he never knew where his friends were buried.

His son Paul, 49, who works at Rank Hovis in Southampton, contacted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to find out the exact location of his father's comrades among the 4,848 graves.

He accompanied his father for the day, along with his son Giorgio, 18, a Portsmouth University student, bringing all three generations of the family together. "The whole family is very proud of my dad and the work he has put into the Royal British Legion over the years."

It was Giorgio's first time at the cemetery. Ernie, who last month protested outside the civic offices against the city's lack of D-Day commemorations, hopes to return to the cemetery again one day. He is looking forward to celebrating his 90th birthday next week.