Dan Snow meets Alfred Hicks, a cameraman who filmed D-Day

On 17 May we were delighted to welcome Sergeant Alfred Hicks, who as an 18-year-old had filmed for the RAFFPU in Normandy on the days following D-Day. 94-year-old Sergeant Hicks was able to view some of the footage that he had filmed (eg films ACB 7 and ACB 10) and was interviewed in the IWM Film Archive by Dan Snow as part of the BBC D-Day commemorations.

Sergeant Hicks, who landed at Sword Beach on the first day of the campaign, said: "I wanted to get off at the beach and film the others coming in, but they then took us to the front line, and then we had to walk all the way back, it took us 12 hours."

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IWM is the official repository of the film and photographs shot by the Army Film and Photographic Unit and the RAF Film Production Unit (RAFFPU) in the Second World War. Accompanying infantrymen right into the front-line, AFPU cameramen, who had all transferred from combat units themselves, recorded and documented such momentous events as the landings at Sword beach on the morning of 6 June 1944 and the horrific scenes discovered when the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.