A D-DAY veteran says he cannot bring himself to watch Steven Spielberg's new blockbuster about the Normandy landings because he fears it would bring back old nightmares.

On June 6 1944, Albert Evans led the 50th Artillery Division's attack at Gold Beach, Normandy, just as American GIs braced themselves to rush Omaha beach, as portrayed in Spielberg's film, Saving Private Ryan.

Albert, of Harding Avenue, Orford, says the film's harrowing opening scenes would force him to relive experiences he has spent more than 50 years trying to forget.

Albert, aged 78, said: "I have heard the film is very realistic, and I think it would bring the nightmares back. For the first few years afterwards, I would wake up in the morning wondering where I was. I can tell people about it, but I couldn't bring myself to see the film.

"After we landed that day, I was first on the beach in a little tank called a Bren Gun Carrier. There was a lot of fire coming at us. The infantry lads were scattered all over the beach, lying on the ground, dead.

"Half of them never even got off the boats. We had to run over them because we had to get away as quick as we could. I just thought, I'm going to get out of this alive.

"The Americans got a real hammering - they fell like flies. From there on it got better until Patton came and we met Americans at Arnhem," he said.

But Albert says he welcomes the fact that the film depicts the carnage of war without the usual Hollywood romanticism.

Said Albert: "These kids were scared to death - if they could have dug a hole and crawled into it they would have. But they did what they had to do. There is no heroism in war - I know, I've been there."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.