An RAF nurse from Radlett was the first woman to land on a Normandy beach after D-Day, the day that Allied forces numbering 135,000 invaded France to liberate Europe from the Nazis.

Iris Bower volunteered to join the forces landing en masse in June 1944, because her husband had been killed in action and she wanted "to make a contribution".

In full battle dress, tin hat and Red Cross armband, the 88-year-old remembers landing at Juno Beach with troops, running down the ramp in pitch darkness on June 12 and feeling the sand under her feet.

"After all these years I can still see some of the Tommys' faces looking at me, and one saying 'Watch out Adolf, you've had it now'".

Iris found herself tending to casualty after casualty against a backdrop of mass movement, gunfire and confusion, but she said: "Strangely enough I was not really frightened. Looking after the casualties helped me not be frightened myself."

For several days, Iris and her colleague, Mollie Giles, were the only women in Normandy.

During the war Iris, a senior sister, treated and cared for Battle of Britain pilots at Torquay's RAF Officer's Hospital, and travelled across Europe helping the wounded of all nationalities.

On several occasions, she showed the late Queen Mother, then Queen, around RAF hospital wards and recalled how much the pilots adored her.

Serving in the RAF's number 50 mobile field hospital, she explained: "We followed the battle right through Europe. The sons of people I looked after have kept in touch all these years.

She went to Austria, Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark and Germany, and ended up in the Baltic. "It was a wonderful feeling to be looking after them, we did tremendous work," she said in reflection.

Iris was awarded an MBE after the war, and was awarded ARRC status — associate member of the Royal Red Cross — a top honour for nurses.

After training as a nurse at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, she soon realised her ambition of joining the RAF, though recalls how difficult it was.

Her pilot husband, Donald, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on his first 'tour' of action, but was killed flying over Germany on his next tour.

She says it was his death that gave her the strength to volunteer for the Normandy landing. "Because he was killed I felt I had to do something, so I wrote to the matron in charge and asked if I could land in Normandy. To my amazement I was told I could," she said.

Iris, who lives in Slade Court, Radlett, married Army Major William Bower in 1949, and later had two children.

She currently features in a major exhibition at the Imperial War Museum called Women and War, which runs until next April.

Not for the first time, Iris met the Queen at the exhibition's opening last month and was also recently invited to tea at Buckingham Palace.

"It's not bad for a little Welsh girl from a little Welsh village," she said.